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U60 - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Despite the continuing widespread popularity of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle did not originate the detective story. It was Edgar Allan Poe's short narratives (including the 3 Auguste Dupin tales), which he called tales of reasoning (where the crime itself sometimes becomes secondary to the efforts taken to solve it), in which he originated almost every significant principle used by detective novels written for more than a century afterward.
        
        The Murderers in the Rue Morgue (1841)
        
        The Gold-Bug (1843)
        
        The Purloined Letter (1844)
        
        The Mystery of Marie Roget (1845)
        
        Considered the first ever detective story where the crime takes place in a seemingly impossible location. Here, the fictional French detective Auguste Dupin is first introduced as he investigates a dreadful double murder in Rue Morge, a street in Paris.
        
        A treasure-hunting adventure dependent on the deciphering/solution of a coded message and a search for a buried treasure.
        
        It involves the theft of a compromising letter and its subsequent hiding in plain sight. Dupin uses his analytical skills to recover the stolen letter, which is being used to blackmail a prominent individual. It presents the theory that when all other possibilities have been discarded, the one remaining, though apparently improbable, must be correct.
        
        A fictionalized account inspired by a real-life unsolved murder case, in which the detective Auguste Dupin attempts to solve the mystery of the death of Marie Rogers, although the story ends presenting several possible scenarios, leaving the case unsolved.
        
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        Auguste Dupin is the prototype of the perfect detective, an amateur, who demonstrates a great ability to solve crimes by analysing clues unobserved or misinterpreted by the police. Also, he is always in the company of his simple friend, the narrator of the stories.
      - the father of detective novels /tales of reasoning
      - & Auguste Dupin
  - - - Wilkie Collins
        
        Dickens' protege, Wilkie Collins, is credited with the 1st modern English detective novel, The Moonstone. This novel can claim to have established the genre with classic features of the 20th c. detective story: a country house robbery, an 'inside job', a celebrated investigator, bungling local constabulary, detective enquiries, false suspects, the 'least likely suspect', a rudimentary locked room' murder, a reconstruction of the crime, and a final twist in the plot.
        
        The Moonstone (1868)
        
        It revolves around the theft of a valuable yellow diamond known as "the Moonstone" from an Indian temple and gifted to Rachel Verinder on her 18th birthday, then stolen from Rachel's bedroom, leading to a complex investigation to solve the mystery through a series of narrators, each contributing their perspective on the events.
      - Charles Dickens
        
        While Charles Dickens is best known for his social novels, he did contribute to the detective fiction genre with Bleak House, which can be considered a precursor to detective fiction.
        
        Bleak House (1953)
        
        In this novel, the character Inspector Bucket appears as one of the first fictional detectives in literature, and his methods and investigative work were groundbreaking for the time. Inspector Bucket is a police detective who plays a significant role in solving the mystery surrounding the murder of Mr. Tulkinghorn, a lawyer involved in the complex legal case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce.
        
        & Inspector Bucket
  - - - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
        
        In his books each story is a puzzle and the readers are given enough clues so as to discover the answer to the mystery or murderer by themselves. The main interest of these stories lies in the cleverness with which problems are presented & solved, and the characterization of Holmes himself: arrogant, omniscient, and self-absorbed, he comes through not only with wonderful clarity but also as an extremely sympathetic character.
        
        A Study in Scarlet (1887)
        
        The Sign of the Four (1890)
        
        The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902)
        
        The Valley of Fear (1915)
        
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        The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892) is not a full-length novel but a collection of 12 short stories featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes and his friend Dr. John Watson
  - - - Women found themselves with more leisure time, particularly in urban middle-class households. This allowed for the emergence of new leisure activities, including reading as a "relaxing recreation". Also, there was a demand for escapism, as people sought forms of entertainment that provided a break from the challenges of daily life, which detective novels offered.
        
        The interwar period saw the rise of pulp magazines, inexpensive publications that featured a variety of stories, including crime and detective fiction. These magazines provided a platform for many emerging writers & helped popularize the detective genre.
        
        Agatha Christie
        
        One of the best known mystery writers in the world. Educated at home by her mother, she started writing detective fiction whilst she was working as a nurse in WWI.
        
        The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)
        
        It introduced the masterful detective Hercule Poirot, the eccentric, meticulous & egotistic Belgian detective with an inclination for order & symmetry who appears in about 25 novels and many short stories. His close friend and narrator of the story, Arthur Hastings often serves as a foil to Poirot, providing a more conventional perspective.
        
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        (1890-1976)
        
        & Hercule Poirot
        
        Rise of Pulp Magazines
        
        Changing domestic roles for women
      - Social & cultural changes after WWI
  - - - The sense of disillusionment in the inter-war years was intensified by political & economic disasters for which people were totally unprepared:
        
        The folly of the Prohibition era, which led to the rise organized crime (gangsterism) taking advantage of the lucrative illegal alcohol trade, as well as evidence of illicit connections between crime, business & politics.
        
        The stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression affected the global economy, and is regarded as the worst catastrophe of modern times.
        
        The stories are typically occur in harsh urban settings, such as the hostile streets of Los Angeles, New York or Chicago, contributing to an atmosphere of cynicism, violence, crime & corruption (sense of fatalism). The characters live in a world gone wrong, where the law is something to be manipulated for profit & power. These stories do not only consist of searching for a murder following a lineal plot, but also they are also about denouncing social corruption by reflecting what happens in the hostile streets of a city with no order.
        
        The hard-boiled investigator is a tough, independent, often solitary protagonist, a cynical private detective or loner lawman who operates outside traditional law enforcement structures. He is a morally complex/ambiguous character who navigates a world where right & wrong are not always clearly defined. He is frequently exposed to danger (brutal criminals, often associated with a corrupt power structure), and may resort to questionable or violent methods to achieve justice, not being afraid to bend or break the rules to achieve his goals. But unlike the classic Holmesian detective, he cannot restore order and set all wrongs right.
        
        A key characteristic is the unsettling manipulation of point of view & the unstable position of the protagonist. Victim, criminal & investigator can all act as protagonists. The victim might, for example, become the aggressor; the hunter might turn into the hunted or vice versa, the investigator might double as either the victim or the perpetrator. Whereas the traditional mystery story, with its stable triangle of detective, victim and murderer, is reasonably certain to have the detective as the protagonist. Here, an exploration of guilt is fundamental and there can be no clear distinction between guilt & innocence.
        
        Hammett and Chandler have had hundreds of imitators, but only two showed anything like their perceptiveness of the social scene: Jonathan Latimer, whose early Bill Crane stories are filled with sardonically funny dialogue, and Ross MacDonald, Chandler's true successor, whose work radiates human sympathy and understanding.
        
        Manipulation of POV
        
        The hard-boiled detective
        
        Sense of fatalism
        
        Political & economic disasters
      - Black Mask
    - - Unlike the classic detectives, who based their work on observation & deduction through logical thinking, "hard-boiled" detectives are hardened by experience, show no feelings and have more confidence in their gun than in their deductive powers.
- - - - Before he became a famous writer, Hammett worked as a private detective for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. This job was probably the most important influence on Hammett’s life. It gave him firsthand insights into the world of crime & detection, which would later define his novels. In fact, he claimed that some of his fictional cases were drawn from real-life incidents.
        
        Hammett is often credited as one of the pioneers of the hard-boiled detective genre. Before his work, detective fiction often featured sophisticated investigators solving genteel mysteries. Hammett introduced a grittier & more realistic portrayal of crime, creating tough & morally ambiguous characters like Sam Spade from The Maltese Falcon and the Continental Op from Red Harvest.
        
        The popularity of Hammett's novels & their adaptability to film led him to Hollywood, where he wrote screenplays & adapted his works for the screen. His novel The Thin Man was turned into a wildly successful movie series. He had a complex relationship with the film industry, contributing to screenplays and often being involved in various adaptations of his works.
        
        In the 1940s, Hammett became heavily involved in leftist politics & was a member of the Communist Party USA. During the Red Scare, his political affiliations brought him under scrutiny. In 1951, he was even imprisoned for 6 months after refusing to testify. He was blacklisted & effectively banned from publishing in the mainstream.
        
        Hammett's health suffered significantly throughout his life due to tuberculosis, alcoholism & later emphysema. His heavy drinking only worsened his health problems. Despite his success as a writer, his involvement in politics, the blacklist, and legal troubles left him in financial difficulty in his later years.
        
        In Hammett’s fiction, crime and violence fill every part of society, from the top to the bottom, in such a way that even the detective is caught in this world of crime. The detective knows that the world is “dirty”, and he will use all the possible means to fight against it, never mind whether they are licit or not. He created a new and realistic kind of detective fiction in which he destroys the old pattern of the brilliant detective hero. This "hard-boiled" detective becomes confused with the rest of the characters in the novel. Reason and clues rarely help this type of detective to solve the mystery presented in the plot, so they have more faith in their gun than in reason. They will use violence, just like the gangsters they fight.
        
        Red Harvest (1929)
        
        The Dain Curse (1929)
        
        The Maltese Falcon (1930)
        
        The Glass Key (1931)
        
        The Thin Man (1934)
        
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        Sam Spade
        
        the protagonist of Hammett's most famous work, The Maltese Falcon (1930)
        
        An anti-hero
        
        Morally ambiguous
        
        Inspired by real-life detectives
        
        Ambivalence towards women
        
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  - - - Chandler was born in Chicago in 1888 but moved to England with his mother after his parents separated. He was educated at Dulwich College, a prestigious London school. This English education exposed him to classical literature and helped shape his writing style. He eventually returned to the US at 24.
        
        Chandler didn’t start his writing career until he was in his early 40s (published his 1st work at 42). Before becoming a writer, he had a varied career that included working as an oil company executive. During the Great Depression, he was fired from his executive position due to his alcoholism & erratic behavior, which prompted him to turn to writing.
        
        Chandler’s success as a novelist led to a career in Hollywood, where he worked as a screenwriter. His novels were also adapted into successful films, including The Big Sleep (1946). However, Chandler often clashed with Hollywood producers and was critical of the film industry, calling it a place of “second-rate minds.”
        
        Chandler married Cissy Pascal, who was 18 years his senior. They had a complicated relationship, but Chandler remained deeply devoted to her. Cissy’s ill health & eventual death in 1954 profoundly affected him, leading to a period of heavy drinking & depression. Some scholars believe his grief over her death influenced the darker tone in his later works.
        
        Chandler battled alcoholism for much of his adult life, and his drinking influenced his writing & personal relationships. His struggles with alcohol often led to erratic behavior and made it difficult for him to maintain a consistent writing schedule.
        
        The Big Sleep (1939)
        
        Farewell, My Lovely (1940)
        
        The High Window (1942)
        
        The Lady in the Lake (1943)
        
        The Little Sister (1949)
        
        The Long Goodbye (1953)
        
        Playback (1958)
        
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- - - - Before becoming a full-time writer, she worked for the National Health Service (NHS) and later in the Home Office's criminal law department. The insights she gained from her work shaped the realism & complexity of her crime fiction, often reflecting an insider's knowledge of government bureaucracy.
        
        James published her first novel, Cover Her Face, in 1962 when she was 42 years old. Before that, she had been working various jobs and raising her family. She began writing as a way to financially support her family after her husband returned from WWII suffering from mental illness. Despite her late start, she wrote well into her eighties. So it didn’t stop her from becoming one of the most acclaimed crime writers of her era.
        
        James had to face significant challenges in her personal life. Her husband, Ernest White, suffered from severe mental health issues following his return from WWII, and he eventually had to live in a hospital until his death in 1964. She raised two daughters while managing a demanding job & writing career, demonstrating her resilience & determination.
        
        Adam Dalgliesh:
        
        Cover Her Face (1962)
        
        A Mind to Murder (1963)
        
        Shroud for a Nightingale (1971)
        
        The Black Tower (1975)
        
        Death of an Expert Witness (1977)
        
        A Taste for Death (1986)
        
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        Cordelia Gray:
        
        An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1972)
        
        The Skull Beneath the Skin (1982)