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

Hildegarde Withers

Gender: Female

A tall, angular and determined elderly school mistress – in later books retired school mistress – in New York who solves cases in a suite of cosy detective stories by Stuart Palmer. She often cooperates with Inspector Oscar Piper and lawyer John J. Malone, created by Craig Rice. Hildegarde Withers always wears original hats and has an umbrella with her, collects tropical fish and is a strong opp...

Further reading