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

Albert Campion

Gender: Male

Campion is an English amateur detective with an obscure past. He is an aristocrat, clearly associated with royalty, and he is well respected despite his dull personality. He is arrogant and a bit of a snob in the early books by Margery Allingham, but he soon develops into a multi-faceted, sympathetic person who solves murder using his great understanding of human nature.

Further reading