Meny

Theme article

History of crime fiction

By: Johan Wopenka

Depending upon how one wishes to define the concept ‘crime fiction’, it is possible to trace its history and roots back in time. When Dorothy L. Sayers compiled her comprehensive three-volume anthology Great Short Stories of Detection, Mystery and Horror (1928–34) she started with two stories from the Old Testament, and when Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee (alias Ellery Queen) wrote their fundamental The Detective Short Story : A Bibliography (1942), they listed eight Chinese collections of short stories which are believed to have been written down between 600 A.D. and 1800 A.D., some of them containing stories based on an older, oral tradition.

Further reading

Literary figure

Edward Leithen

Gender: Male

A Scottish lawyer and Conservative member of parliament, as well as a devoted fly-fisherman, the main character in a suite of crime adventures by John Buchan. Sir Edward Leithen is a stylish man and moves in the best of circles, but falls ill with tuberculosis. He does, however, take on a final case, and travels to Canada where he solves the problem and before he dies also helps a native tribe...

Further reading