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

Morten Martens

Gender: Male

A divorced foreman in a printing works in Trondheim, Norway, with a daughter, an everyday, friendly appearance, and a dream of becoming rich. Morten Martens makes an attempt by printing counterfeit pound banknotes, which results in political unrest internationally, and he has to flee and live under various assumed names. In the books by Fredrik Skagen he often finds himself in trouble on account...

Further reading