A
Short Explanation of
Classic Detective Mystery Fiction
From the very
early days and how it relates to Sherlock Holmes
Classic
detective mystery fiction is the type of
fiction that really makes a reader focus on the pages. These types of
stories
are not generally very gory or bloody as such stories can be today, but
they do
hold some blood and gore inside the pages; they just release it briefly
and at
proper intervals. The history of classic detective mystery fiction is
interesting to
say the least.
Most critics agree that classic detective
fiction rose from the pages around 1841 when the famous Edgar Allen Poe
wrote
the story of "The
Murders in the Rue
Morgue". His
character, C. Auguste Dupin, is able to solve the
crimes that were unable
to be solved by the police. Thereby paving the way for future
detectives to come
along and do the same.
He created the dazzling detective who attempts to
solve
the perplexing crime and the aloof colleague (or friend) who records
every bit
of the case in detail. The police, of course are lost. They appear to
be unsure
of which road to follow and by the end they are completely astonished
as
everything is laid out before them by the hero (the detective).
After Poe’s discovery and subsequent
tale, there were many attempts at successful detective fiction but none
were
notable until "Recollections
of a Detective
Police Officer" by
William "Waters" Russell. At this point, the stories had become almost
unreadable since there really was no literary attempt. The end to hack
writing
came in 1859 when Wilkie Collins’ "The
Woman in White"
forced other writers
to show some sort of a literary effort
to be able to compete. The other notable novel that followed in
Collins’
footsteps was Victor Hugo’s "Les Miserables"
(1862) which is still immensely
popular in theatre today.
Novels such as this were published for
years, giving reason to the belief that there would never be an
evolution of the genre. However, in 1887, Sherlock Holmes emerged from
the
pages of Beeton’s Christmas Annual in "A Study In Scarlet".
Unfortunately, the original story did not
take off at first. The intricate character had seemed doomed to fade
into the
pages and be lost forever.
Four years later, in 1890, Lippincott picked up
Arthur Conan
Doyle and put him on contract to write
more Holmes stories. Strand
magazine
also began publishing Doyle’s detective stories. This is when the craze
began.
The first stories were combined into a book to form a series. "The
Adventures of Sherlock
Holmes" was
enormously successful, and so was the following series, "The Memoirs of Sherlock
Holmes",
even though Doyle made a decision
to kill of Holmes in this series.
Of course, since Sherlock Holmes was now a very
popular
character, his death generated anger and protest among the public. Some
even going as far as to wear black armbands in the street.
The demand for Sherlock Holmes was greater than ever. Although Conan
Doyle obviously
did not want to do it, he was finally forced to bring the character
back to
life around 1903 in "The
Adventure of The Empty
House", which was the first of a collection of Sherlock
Holmes stories collectively titled "The
Return of Sherlock Holmes", in order to appease both the
public and the publishers.
This
character, and the cases that he participated in, changed the way that
detective
fiction would be written
from then on. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is now
considered to have paved
the way for the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.
Chris Haycock
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