Women Writing Crime Fiction 1860 1880

Arthur Conan Doyle has long been considered the greatest writer of crime fiction, and the gender bias of the genre has foregrounded William Godwin, Edgar Allan Poe, Wilkie Collins, Émile Gaboriau and Fergus Hume. But earlier and significant contributions were being made by women in Britain, the United States and Australia between 1860 and 1880, a period that was central to the development of the genre. This work focuses on women writers of this genre and these years, including Catherine Crowe, Caroline Clive, Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Mrs. Henry (Ellen) Wood, Harriet Prescott Spofford, Louisa May Alcott, Metta Victoria Fuller Victor, Anna Katharine Green, Céleste de Chabrillan, “Oliné Keese” (Caroline Woolmer Leakey), Eliza Winstanley, Ellen Davitt, and Mary Helena Fortune—innovators who set a high standard for women writers to follow.

This five-volume series, British Women’s Writing From Brontë to Bloomsbury, 1840-1940, historically contextualizes and traces developments in women’s fiction from 1840 to 1940. Critically assessing both canonical and lesser-known British women’s writing decade by decade, it redefines the landscape of women’s authorship across a century of dynamic social and cultural change. With each of its volumes devoted to two decades, the series is wide in scope but historically sharply defined. Volume 1: 1840s and 1850s inaugurates the series by historically and culturally contextualizing Victorian women’s writing distinctly within the 1840s and 1850s. Using a range of critical perspectives including political and literary history, feminist approaches, disability studies, and the history of reading, the volume’s 16 original essays consider such developments as the construction of a post-Romantic tradition, the politicization of the domestic sphere, and the development of crime and sensation writing. Centrally, it reassesses key mid-nineteenth-century female authors in the context in which they first published while also recovering neglected women writers who helped to shape the literary landscape of the 1840s and 1850s.

This five-volume series, British Women’s Writing From Brontë to Bloomsbury, 1840–1940, historicallycontextualizes and traces developments in women’s fiction from 1840 to 1940. Critically assessingboth canonical and lesser-known British women’s writing decade by decade, it redefines the landscapeof women’s authorship across a century of dynamic social and cultural change. With each ofits volumes devoted to two decades, the series is wide in scope but historically sharply defined. Volume 2: 1860s and 1870s continues the series by historically and culturally contextualizing Victorianwomen’s writing distinctly within the 1860s and 1870s. Covering a range of fictional approaches,including short stories, religiously inflected novels, and comic writing the volume’s 16 original essaysconsider such developments as the sensation craze, the impact of new technologies, and the careeropportunities opening for women. Centrally, it reassesses key nineteenth-century female authors inthe context in which they first published while also recovering neglected women writers who helpedto shape the literary landscape of the 1860s and 1870s.

 Australian crime fiction has grown from the country’s origins as an 18th-century English prison colony. Early stories focused on escaped convicts becoming heroic bush rangers, or how the system mistreated those who were wrongfully convicted. Later came thrillers about wealthy free settlers and lawless gold-seekers, and urban crime fiction, including Fergus Hume’s 1887 international best-seller The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, set in Melbourne. The 1980s saw a surge of private-eye thrillers, popular in a society skeptical of police. Twenty-first century authors have focused on policemen—and increasingly policewomen—and finally indigenous crime narratives. The author explores in detail this rich but little known national subgenre.

A lively exploration of the struggles faced by women in law enforcement and mystery fiction for the past 175 years In 1910, Alice Wells took the oath to join the all-male Los Angeles Police Department. She wore no uniform, carried no weapon, and kept her badge stuffed in her pocketbook. She wasn’t the first or only policewoman, but she became the movement’s most visible voice. Police work from its very beginning was considered a male domain, far too dangerous and rough for a respectable woman to even contemplate doing, much less take on as a profession. A policewoman worked outside the home, walking dangerous city streets late at night to confront burglars, drunks, scam artists, and prostitutes. To solve crimes, she observed, collected evidence, and used reason and logic—traits typically associated with men. And most controversially of all, she had a purpose separate from her husband, children, and home. Women who donned the badge faced harassment and discrimination. It would take more than seventy years for women to enter the force as full-fledged officers. Yet within the covers of popular fiction, women not only wrote mysteries but also created female characters that handily solved crimes. Smart, independent, and courageous, these nineteenth- and early twentieth-century female sleuths (including a healthy number created by male writers) set the stage for Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, Sara Paretsky’s V. I. Warshawski, Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta, and Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone, as well as TV detectives such as Prime Suspect’s Jane Tennison and Law and Order’s Olivia Benson. The authors were not amateurs dabbling in detection but professional writers who helped define the genre and competed with men, often to greater success. Pistols and Petticoats tells the story of women’s very early place in crime fiction and their public crusade to transform policing. Whether real or fictional, investigating women were nearly always at odds with society. Most women refused to let that stop them, paving the way to a modern professional life for women on the force and in popular culture.

This collection establishes new perspectives on the idea of mystery, as it is enacted and encoded in the genre of detective fiction. Essays reclaim detective fiction as an object of critical inquiry, examining the ways it shapes issues of social destabilization, moral ambiguity, reader complicity, intertextuality, and metafiction. Breaking new ground by moving beyond the critical preoccupation with classification of historical types and generic determinants, contributors examine the effect of mystery on literary forms and on readers, who experience the provocative, complex process of coming to grips with the unknown and the unknowable. This volume opens up discussion on publically acclaimed, modern works of mystery and on classic pieces, addressing a variety of forms including novels, plays, graphic novels, television series, films, and ipad games. Re-examining the interpretive potential of a genre that seems easily defined yet has endless permutations, the book closely analyzes the cultural function of mystery, the way it intervenes in social and political problems, as well as the literary properties that give the genre its particular shape. The volume treats various texts as meaningful subjects for critical analysis and sheds new light on the interpretive potential for a genre that creates as much ambiguity as it does clarity. Scholars of mystery and detective fiction, crime fiction, genre studies, and cultural studies will find this volume invaluable.

Classic American Crime Writing of the 1920s—including House Without a Key, The Benson Murder Case, The Tower Treasure, The Roman Hat Mystery, The Tower Treasure, and Little Caesar—offers some of the very best of that decade’s writing. Earl Derr Biggers wrote about Charlie Chan, a Chinese-American detective, at a time when racism was rampant. S. S. Van Dine invented Philo Vance, an effete, rich amateur psychologist who flourished while America danced and the stock market rose. Edwin Stratemeyer, a man of mystery himself, singlehandedly created the juvenile mystery, with the beloved Hardy Boys series. The quintessential American detective Ellery Queen leapt onto the stage, to remain popular for fifty years. W. R. Burnett, created the indelible character of Rico, the first gangster antihero. Each of the five novels included is presented in its original published form, with extensive historical and cultural annotations and illustrations added by Edgar-winning editor Leslie S. Klinger, allowing the reader to experience the story to its fullest. Klinger's detailed foreword gives an overview of the history of American crime writing from its beginnings in the early years of America to the twentieth century.

Starting with William Godwin’s Caleb Williams and Charles Brockden Brown’s Edgar Huntly, this book covers in detail the great works of detective fiction—Poe’s Dupin stories, Conan Doyle’s The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Sayers’ Strong Poison, Chandler’s The Big Sleep, and Simenon’s The Yellow Dog. Lesser-known but important early works are also discussed, including Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White, Émile Gaboriau’s M. Lecoq, Anna Katharine Green’s The Leavenworth Case and Fergus Hume’s The Mystery of a Hansom Cab. More recent titles show increasing variety in the mystery genre, with Patricia Highsmith’s criminal-focused The Talented Mr. Ripley and Chester Himes’ African-American detectives in Cotton Comes to Harlem. Diversity develops further in Sara Paretsky’s tough woman detective V.I. Warshawski in Indemnity Only, Umberto Eco’s medievalist and postmodern The Name of the Rose and the forensic feminism of Patricia Cornwell’s Postmortem. Notably, the best modern crime fiction has been primarily international—Manuel Vásquez Montalbán’s Catalan Summer Seas, Ian Rankin’s Edinburgh-set The Naming of the Dead, Sweden’s Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo and Vikram Chanda’s Mumbai-based Sacred Games. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.