The History of the detective novel

Numerous detective and crime-related stories are highly popular nowadays. They are a major part of television programming. There is plenty of subgenres and works of detective fiction and half of contemporary series are based on them.

As we know it today Arthur Conan Doyle didn’t originate the detective story. It truly began in 1841 when another author of the 19th century, Edgar Allan Poe, introduced Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin in the short story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”. Two women were violently murdered in a mysterious manner. The police have a hard time solving the case. And Dupin leads his own investigation. By the way, the word “detective” didn’t exist at the time.

Many of Dupin’s characteristics such as his logical method of solving problems and ability of reading clues greatly influenced character portrayals of detectives throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. Later detectives, especially well-known Sherlock Holmes, became even more eccentric, and Poe’s nameless narrator had his counterpart in the amiable Dr. Watson.

Charles Dickens’ novel “Bleak House” is the first story that begins to truly resemble the modern conception of detective fiction. The story is about Detective Bucket who investigates the murder of the disgusting lawyer, Tulkinghorn. The work of Dickens in this novel developed some of the commons of detective fiction. Some of them were robberies at an English country house, professional investigators, useless local police, false suspects to throw off the reader, the villain is the least suspected, exciting plot twist and many other details.

If Poe was the inventor of the detective novel, it was Arthur Conan Doyle who truly fastened it as a popular literary genre. Unlike Poe, who only created three stories with the same character, Doyle wrote 56 short stories and four novels featuring Sherlock Holmes.

Conan Doyle initially hoped to publish some of his Holmes. Stories in order to earn some money. But he had no idea that the Sherlock Holmes would become such a well-known adorable character. First of all, Doyle adopted Poe's formulae, cut his complex introductions and restated them in conversational exchanges between his two main characters, and emphasized the “deduction” of astonishing conclusions from trifling clues. These special features made the stories so remarkable and impressive that they have since inspired hundreds of Plays, movies, television series, and other adaptations.

The Golden Era of detective fiction spanned from 1920 to 1940. During this period authors like Freeman Wills Crofts, Anthony Berkeley, Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham, and, of course, Agatha Christie introduced their first detective works. Many more new detectives also appeared. Thanks to them the genre continued to grow. Some of thе more popular detectives were Endeavor Morse and Gervaise Fen, who were made by Edmund Crispin. By the way, Crispin is believed to take the detective genre into a more contemporary direction.

By the end of the 20th century the place of detective fiction was well established. And it’s obvious that the importance of this kind of literature in general and in the 19th-century is undeniable.

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