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Theory and Practice of Classic Detective Fiction
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Jerome H. Delamater, Ruth Prigozy
Prepared under the auspices of Hofstra University
Book Code: GM0462
ISBN: 0-313-30462-9
ISBN-13: 978-0-313-30462-0
224 pages
Greenwood Press
Publication: 10/30/1997
List Price: $119.95 (UK Sterling Price: £70.00)
Availability: Out of stock
Media Type: Hardcover
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects:
Series Title: Contributions to the Study of Popular Culture
Series Number: 62
Reviews:
  • Recommended for all libraries with popular culture collections.
    —Choice
Description: Combining theoretical and practical approaches, this collection of essays explores classic detective fiction from a variety of contemporary viewpoints. Among the diverse perspectives are those which interrogate the way the genre reflects important social and cultural attitudes, contributes to a reader's ability to adapt to the challenges of daily life, and provides alternate takes on the role of the detective as an investigator and arbiter of "truth." Part I looks at the nature of and the audience for detective fiction, as well as at the genre as a literary form. This section includes an inquiry into the role of the detective; an application of object-relations psychology to the genre; and analyses of recent literary criticism positing that traditional detective fiction contained the seeds of its own subversion. Part II applies a variety of theoretical positions to Agatha Christie and her heirs in the British ratiocinative tradition. A concluding essay positions the genre within the middle-class traditions of the novel since its inception in the eighteenth century. Of interest to all scholars and students of detective fiction and British popular culture.
Table of Contents:
  • Preface
  • Theoretical Approaches to the Genre
  • Canonization, Modern Literature, and the Detective Story by John G. Cawelti
  • Shamus-a-um: Having the Quality of a Classical Detective by Timothy W. Boyd and Carolyn Higbie
  • An Ideal Helpmate: The Detective Character as (Fictional) Object and Ideal Imago by Timothy R. Prchal
  • The Politics of Secrecy and Publicity: The Functions of Hidden Stories in Some Recent British Mystery Fiction by Peter Hühn
  • Not so Much "Whodunnit" as "Whoizzit": Margaret Millar's Command of a Metonymic Sub-Genre by Ann Thompson and John O. Thompson
  • Parody and Detective Fiction by Janice Mant
  • "The Game's Afoot": Predecessors and Pursuits of a Postmodern Detective, by Kathleen Belin Owen
  • Agatha Christie Novels and British Detective Fiction
  • Christie's Narrative Games by Robert Merrill
  • "It Was the Mark of Cain": Agatha Christie and the Murder of the Mystery by Robin Woods
  • Impossible Murderers: Agatha Christie and the Community of Readers by Ina Rae Hark
  • "The Daughters of His Manhood": Christie and the Golden Age of Detective Fiction by Mary Anne Ackershoek
  • "I Am Duchess of Malfi Still": The Identity-Death Nexus in The Duchess of Malfi and The Skull Beneath the Skin by Carolyn F. Scott
  • "An Unsuitable Job" for Anyone: The "Filthy Trade" in P. D. James by Marnie Jones and Barbara Barker
  • Between Men: How Ruth Rendell Reads for Gender by Martha Stoddard Holmes
  • Class, Gender, and the Possibilities of Detection in Anne Perry's Victorian Reconstructions by Iska S. Alter
  • A Suitable Job for a Woman: Sexuality, Motherhood, and Professionalism in Gaudy Night by Jasmine Y. Hall
  • The Bureaucrat as Reader: The Detective Novel in the Context of Middle-Class Culture by James E. Bartell
  • Index
LC Card Number: 97-1691
LCC Class: PR830
Dewey Class: 823
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