The Art of Detective Fiction - Hardcover

NA, NA

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312229895 ISBN 13: 9780312229894

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000

Synopsis

In the hands of many of the great writers, the unravelling of mystery is only one strand within a complex project. Other things get unravelled, too - the belief in a rationally explicable world, in the beneficent, ordering force of culture and civilization. Constantly the detective story delights in muddying the waters, in acknowledging the omnipresent possibilities of anarchy and carnage. As a genre, it is supremely able to combine popular appeal with the ability to disturb, provoke and challenge the reader. The essays in this volume all pay tribute to, and seek to account for, the astonishing durability of the detective story as a narrative genre. They range generously, taking a variety of theoretical approaches and including detective fiction in languages other than English, but particular attention is paid to the 'Golden Age' of English detective story-writing and to the 'hard-boiled' American version of the genre. This is a collection that will appeal to the scholar and to the devotee alike; to all those, in fact, who cannot resist the lure of finding out whodunit.

About this title

About the Author:

Warren Chernaik is Emeritus Professor in English at the University of London. Martin Swales is Chair of German at University College, London.

Robert Vilain is Lecturer in German at Royal Holloway, University of London.

About this edition

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0312229895
• ISBN 13: 9780312229894
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 255