Historical whodunnit. INTERNATIONAL SISTER FIDELMA SOCIETY. The Athenian Murders - José Carlos Somoza - Google Books. Detective fiction. Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective—either professional or amateur—investigates a crime, often murder.
Beginnings of detective fiction[edit] In ancient literature[edit] Early Arab detective fiction[edit] The earliest known example of a detective story was The Three Apples, one of the tales narrated by Scheherazade in the One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights). In this story, a fisherman discovers a heavy, locked chest along the Tigris river and he sells it to the Abbasid Caliph, Harun al-Rashid. The main difference between Ja'far ("The Three Apples") and later fictional detectives, such as Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot, is that Ja'far has no actual desire to solve the case. Early Chinese detective fiction[edit] Dorothy L. Sayers. Dorothy Leigh Sayers (usually pronounced /ˈseɪ.ərz/, although Sayers herself preferred /ˈsɛərz/ and encouraged the use of her middle initial to facilitate this pronunciation;[1] 13 June 1893 – 17 December 1957) was a renowned English crime writer, poet, playwright, essayist, translator and Christian humanist.
She was also a student of classical and modern languages. She is best known for her mysteries, a series of novels and short stories set between the First and Second World Wars that feature English aristocrat and amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey, that remain popular to this day. However, Sayers herself considered her translation of Dante's Divine Comedy to be her best work. She is also known for her plays, literary criticism and essays. Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes (/ˈʃɜrlɒk ˈhoʊmz/) is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a graduate of the University of Edinburgh Medical School.
A London-based "consulting detective" whose abilities border on the fantastic, Holmes is known for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to adopt almost any disguise and his use of forensic science to solve difficult cases. YouTube. Joseph Bell. Joseph Bell, JP, DL, FRCS (2 December 1837 – 4 October 1911) was a Scottish lecturer at the medical school of the University of Edinburgh in the 19th century.
He is perhaps best known as an inspiration for the literary character Sherlock Holmes. Margery Allingham. Margery Louise Allingham (20 May 1904 – 30 June 1966) was an English crime writer, best remembered for her detective stories featuring gentleman sleuth Albert Campion.
Golden Age of Detective Fiction. The Golden Age of Detective Fiction was an era of classic murder mystery novels produced by various authors, all following similar patterns and style.
Origins[edit] Mademoiselle de Scudéri, by E.T.A. Agatha Christie. Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, DBE (née Miller; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English crime novelist, short story writer, and playwright.
She also wrote six romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best known for the 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections she wrote under her own name, most of which revolve around the investigations of such characters as Hercule Poirot, Jane Marple, Parker Pyne, Harley Quin/Mr Satterthwaite, and Tommy and Tuppence Beresford. She wrote the world's longest-running play, The Mousetrap.[1] Born into a wealthy upper-middle-class family in Torquay, Devon, Christie served in a hospital during the First World War, before marrying and starting a family in London. She was initially unsuccessful at getting her work published; but in 1920 The Bodley Head press published her novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles, featuring the character of Hercule Poirot. This launched her literary career. Hercule Poirot. Overview[edit] Influences[edit] Poirot's name was derived from two other fictional detectives of the time: Marie Belloc Lowndes' Hercule Popeau and Frank Howel Evans' Monsieur Poirot, a retired Belgian police officer living in London.[1] A more obvious influence on the early Poirot stories is that of Arthur Conan Doyle.
Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes. Marie Adelaide Elizabeth Rayner Lowndes, née Belloc (5 August 1868 – 14 November 1947), was a prolific English novelist.
Active from 1898 until her death, she had a literary reputation for combining exciting incident with psychological interest. Her most famous novel, The Lodger (1913), based on the Jack the Ripper murders of 1888, has been adapted for the screen five different times; the first movie version was Alfred Hitchcock's silent film The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927), followed by Maurice Elvey's in 1932, John Brahm's in 1944, Man in the Attic in 1953, and David Ondaatje's in 2009. Another novel of hers, Letty Lynton (1931), was the basis for the 1932 motion picture of the same name starring Joan Crawford.
Miss Marple. Jane Marple, usually referred to as Miss Marple, is a fictional character appearing in 12 of Agatha Christie's crime novels and in 20 short stories.
Miss Marple is an elderly spinster who lives in the village of St. Sensation novel. Themes and reception[edit] Typically the sensation novel focused on shocking subject matter including adultery, theft, kidnapping, insanity, bigamy, forgery, seduction and murder.[2] It distinguished itself from other contemporary genres, including the Gothic novel, by setting these themes in ordinary, familiar and often domestic settings, thereby undermining the common Victorian-era assumption that sensational events were something foreign and divorced from comfortable middle-class life. W. S. Wilkie Collins. Collins published his best known works in the 1860s, achieving financial stability and an international reputation.
During this time he began suffering from gout, and developed an addiction to opium, which he took (in the form of laudanum) for pain. He continued to publish novels and other works throughout the 1870s and 80s, but the quality of his writing declined along with his health. He died in 1889. Biography[edit] Early life[edit] In 1835 Collins began attending school at the Maida Vale academy. Early writing career[edit] True crime. H. H. Holmes. Herman Webster Mudgett (May 16, 1861[1] – May 7, 1896[2]), better known under the name of Dr. Henry Howard Holmes, was one of the first documented American serial killers in the modern sense of the term. In Chicago at the time of the 1893 World's Fair, Holmes opened a hotel which he had designed and built for himself specifically with murder in mind, and which was the location of many of his murders. While he confessed to 27 murders, of which nine were confirmed, his actual body count could be as high as 200.[3] He took an unknown number of his victims from the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, which was less than two miles away, to his "World's Fair" hotel.
Mary Ann Cotton. Mary Ann Cotton (born Mary Ann Robson; 31 October 1832 – 24 March 1873) was an English woman convicted of murdering her children. She was believed to have murdered up to 21 people, mainly by arsenic poisoning. Early life[edit] Mary Ann Robson was born on 31 October 1832 at Low Moorsley (now part of Houghton-le-Spring in the City of Sunderland) and baptised at St Mary's, West Rainton on 11 November.
When Mary Ann was eight, her parents moved the family to the County Durham village of Murton, where she went to a new school and found it difficult to make friends. Soon after the move her father fell 150 feet (46 m) to his death down a mine shaft at Murton Colliery. Belle Gunness. Belle Sorenson Gunness (born as Brynhild Paulsdatter Størseth; November 11, 1859 – April 28, 1908) was a Norwegian-American serial killer. Standing six feet tall (183 cm) and weighing over 200 pounds (91 kg), she was a physically strong woman.[2] She killed most of her suitors and boyfriends, and her two daughters, Myrtle and Lucy. She may also have killed both of her husbands and all of her children, on different occasions.
Her apparent motives involved collecting life insurance, cash and other valuables, and eliminating witnesses. Reports estimate that she killed between 25 and 40 people over several decades. Jack the Ripper. Jack the Ripper is the best-known name given to an unidentified serial killer who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The name originated in a letter written by someone claiming to be the murderer that was widely disseminated in the media. The letter is widely believed to have been a hoax, and may have been written by a journalist in a deliberate attempt to heighten interest in the story. Within the crime case files as well as journalistic accounts the killer was known as "the Whitechapel Murderer" as well as "Leather Apron".
Attacks ascribed to the Ripper typically involved female prostitutes who lived and worked in the slums of London and whose throats were cut prior to abdominal mutilations. The removal of internal organs from at least three of the victims led to proposals that their killer possessed anatomical or surgical knowledge.
Background Murders Canonical five Later Whitechapel murders Other alleged victims. Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes. Marie Adelaide Elizabeth Rayner Lowndes, née Belloc (5 August 1868 – 14 November 1947), was a prolific English novelist. Active from 1898 until her death, she had a literary reputation for combining exciting incident with psychological interest. The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog. Casebook: Jack the Ripper - Main.