American Detective Fiction

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

David C. Dougherty (Loyola University Maryland)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.2: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Nineteenth Century, 1783-1900.
Vol. editors: Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University)

Dates

Date of occurrence 1800-

Places

United States (Location)

Genres and Modes

Crime and Detective
Prose Fiction Narrative

The Origins of Modern Detective Fiction: The British Sleuth

Although the formula for modern detective fiction was invented by the eccentric American genius Edgar Allan Poe, the sub-genre came to its perfection in the work of English writers Wilkie Collins, A. Conan Doyle, G. K. Chesterton, Dorothy Sayers, and Agatha Christie. As several literary historians have observed, these stories had their roots in the development of science during the nineteenth century, with its elevation of observation and reason as defining, ideal human characteristics. Small wonder that Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet (1887) features Dr. Watson’s being introduced to an eccentric chemist named Sherlock Holmes; their …

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

6548 words

Citation: Dougherty, David C.. "American Detective Fiction". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 16 April 2019 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19511, accessed 23 November 2024.]

Save this article