Priestman, Martin, (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2003)
‘The Newgate novel and sensation fiction, 1830-1868’, Lyn Pykett, pp. 19-39
- sensation novels- ‘tales of modern life that dealt in nervous, psychological, sexual and social
shocks, and had complicated plots involving bigamy, adultery, seduction, fraud, forgery,
blackmail, kidnapping and, sometimes, murder’ (p.33.)
- LA is ‘never formally accused of any crime, and is sentenced to death-by-boredom in a
maison de santé by her nephew Robert, who detects her crimes and acts as both jury and
judge in determining her guilt and fixing her punishment’ (p.34.)
- The sensation novel- ‘explored the dark underside of respectable society: the family is the
locus of crime, and the secrets of the family are responsible for most of the plot complications,
and in most cases crime and punishment circulates entirely within the family’ (p.34.)
- By the 1860s ‘crime was now seen as an integral part of the respectable world’ (p.34.)
- A ‘world in which everyone was potentially a criminal was a world of universal suspicion in
which everyone became a detective or a suspect’ (p.34-5)
‘The short story from Poe to Chesterton’, Martin A. Kayman, pp. 41- 58
- Poe ‘plays a crucial innovative role’ (p.41.) in ‘the appearance of a new and modern
kind of protagonist from the mid-nineteenth century, who has come to be called ‘the
detective’ (p.41.)
- ‘although most of the heroes of detective fiction are distinguished by some personal
eccentricity, they are not exactly ‘characters’ in the customary literary-realist sense’ rather
‘they are defined by their methodologies or approaches’ (p.44.)
- Poe’s short stories- coincide with the creation of the ‘Detective Department’ of the
Metropolitan Police (1842).
- If one looked at the Dupin stories ‘without such retrospective preconceptions, one might
wonder to what extent they really are about crime and detection’ (p.44.)
- Dupin ‘is motivated by the specific intellectual problem, rather than by social or ethical
values’ (p.45.)
- MRM ‘is taken up by lengthy discussions of his psychological, analytic and linguistic theories’
(p.45.)
- P.45. ‘Central to Dupin’s methodology is the need for an imaginative symmetry between the
investigator and the object of his inquiry’. > ‘for ordinary affairs, the institution of the
newspapers, the police and the law courts, which mimic the ‘mass’ by reasoning on the
average, are generally adequate’ (p.45.) However, for other problems ‘a new
epistemological synthesis is needed, combining the exactness of mathematical science
with the speculative potential of philosophy and poetry’ (p.45.)
- Dupin mind-reads- ‘Dupin should be considered not only in relation to the development of the
criminal detective, but also to the pathological analyst’ (p.46)
- ‘the elements of the Sherlock Holmes character and stories are skilfully selected from tried
and tested elements in earlier sensational novelists and story writers’ (p.48.)
- The stories ‘celebrate the capacity of rationalism to organise the material of existence
meaningfully, and the power of the rational individual to protect us from semiotic and
moral chaos’ (p.48.)
- ‘the pieces of obscure information with which he is constantly surprising us are often as
decisive as any supposedly deductive rigour’ (p.50.)
- Holmes- ‘his expertise consists in what he decides he needs to know in order to do what he
wants to do- and, while he continues to improve his knowledge, he is famously unperturbed by
his own areas of ignorance’ (p.50.)
- The ‘profession for which his idiosyncratic training qualifies him is unique to the bundle of
methods and knowledge that his character embodies’ (p.50.) > he is the only one of his kind-
as he says so himself.
H. Gustav Klaus and Stephen Knight, (eds.), The Art of Murder: New Essays on Detective
Fiction (Tubingen: Stauffenburg Verlag, 1998)
‘The Detective as Genteel Chess Player: Poe, Doyle, Dibdin’, Bernd-Peter Lange, pp. 50-66
University Press, 2003)
‘The Newgate novel and sensation fiction, 1830-1868’, Lyn Pykett, pp. 19-39
- sensation novels- ‘tales of modern life that dealt in nervous, psychological, sexual and social
shocks, and had complicated plots involving bigamy, adultery, seduction, fraud, forgery,
blackmail, kidnapping and, sometimes, murder’ (p.33.)
- LA is ‘never formally accused of any crime, and is sentenced to death-by-boredom in a
maison de santé by her nephew Robert, who detects her crimes and acts as both jury and
judge in determining her guilt and fixing her punishment’ (p.34.)
- The sensation novel- ‘explored the dark underside of respectable society: the family is the
locus of crime, and the secrets of the family are responsible for most of the plot complications,
and in most cases crime and punishment circulates entirely within the family’ (p.34.)
- By the 1860s ‘crime was now seen as an integral part of the respectable world’ (p.34.)
- A ‘world in which everyone was potentially a criminal was a world of universal suspicion in
which everyone became a detective or a suspect’ (p.34-5)
‘The short story from Poe to Chesterton’, Martin A. Kayman, pp. 41- 58
- Poe ‘plays a crucial innovative role’ (p.41.) in ‘the appearance of a new and modern
kind of protagonist from the mid-nineteenth century, who has come to be called ‘the
detective’ (p.41.)
- ‘although most of the heroes of detective fiction are distinguished by some personal
eccentricity, they are not exactly ‘characters’ in the customary literary-realist sense’ rather
‘they are defined by their methodologies or approaches’ (p.44.)
- Poe’s short stories- coincide with the creation of the ‘Detective Department’ of the
Metropolitan Police (1842).
- If one looked at the Dupin stories ‘without such retrospective preconceptions, one might
wonder to what extent they really are about crime and detection’ (p.44.)
- Dupin ‘is motivated by the specific intellectual problem, rather than by social or ethical
values’ (p.45.)
- MRM ‘is taken up by lengthy discussions of his psychological, analytic and linguistic theories’
(p.45.)
- P.45. ‘Central to Dupin’s methodology is the need for an imaginative symmetry between the
investigator and the object of his inquiry’. > ‘for ordinary affairs, the institution of the
newspapers, the police and the law courts, which mimic the ‘mass’ by reasoning on the
average, are generally adequate’ (p.45.) However, for other problems ‘a new
epistemological synthesis is needed, combining the exactness of mathematical science
with the speculative potential of philosophy and poetry’ (p.45.)
- Dupin mind-reads- ‘Dupin should be considered not only in relation to the development of the
criminal detective, but also to the pathological analyst’ (p.46)
- ‘the elements of the Sherlock Holmes character and stories are skilfully selected from tried
and tested elements in earlier sensational novelists and story writers’ (p.48.)
- The stories ‘celebrate the capacity of rationalism to organise the material of existence
meaningfully, and the power of the rational individual to protect us from semiotic and
moral chaos’ (p.48.)
- ‘the pieces of obscure information with which he is constantly surprising us are often as
decisive as any supposedly deductive rigour’ (p.50.)
- Holmes- ‘his expertise consists in what he decides he needs to know in order to do what he
wants to do- and, while he continues to improve his knowledge, he is famously unperturbed by
his own areas of ignorance’ (p.50.)
- The ‘profession for which his idiosyncratic training qualifies him is unique to the bundle of
methods and knowledge that his character embodies’ (p.50.) > he is the only one of his kind-
as he says so himself.
H. Gustav Klaus and Stephen Knight, (eds.), The Art of Murder: New Essays on Detective
Fiction (Tubingen: Stauffenburg Verlag, 1998)
‘The Detective as Genteel Chess Player: Poe, Doyle, Dibdin’, Bernd-Peter Lange, pp. 50-66
