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

Henry Gamadge

Gender: Male

American antiquarian bookseller, who is also an author, bibliophile and expert on rare books and manuscripts, as well as being a friendly and thoughtful amateur detective. He is tall, but has a hunchback from sitting bent over books, and has a wise wife in Clara. Henry Gamadge solves a number of cases – many of which are concerned with literature or the theatre – in 16 whodunnits by Elizabeth Dal...

Further reading