SEL 4
The essays in this volume explore a variety of structuring taxonomies, the relationships between the aesthetic forms, styles and methodologies of detective and crime fiction in the late-Victorian and Edwardian period. The influences on the artists in the genre are as varied as the interests of the period in scientific method, forensics, archaeology, aesthetics, medicine, and the paranormal. But the formalizing tendencies of investigative process remain, and it is this adherence, in artist and detective alike, to seeing crime and its resolution as a stylistic imposition of structure on disorder that is under examination. These important essays underscore how much our understanding of genre owes to the influence of mass culture on the establishment of literary hierarchies.
English Literature in Transition 51.4 (2008)
CONTENTS
No Respecter of Class: The Ubiquitous Appeal of Late-Victorian Crime Fiction
Paul Fox
Horrifying Ho(l)mes: Conan Doyle's Bachelor Detective and the Aesthetics of Domestic Realism
Rudolph Glitz
Algernon Blackwood's Modernist Experiments in Psychical Detection
George M. Johnson
Devolved Forms: Aesthetic Solutions to the Contentious Style of Arthur Machen's "The Great God Pan
Paul Fox
Double Lives, Terrible Pleasures: Oscar Wilde and Crime Fiction in the Fin de Siècle
Nick Freeman
The Medical Detective and the Victorian Fear of Degeneration
Aaron Parrett
The Science of Detection: Geology and Aesthetics in Victorian and Edwardian Detective Fiction
Helen Sutherland
Interpreting the Work of Art and Reading Clues: Aesthetics and Detection in Wilkie Collins' The Law and the Lady
Elizabeth Anderman
The Art of Murder and Fine Furniture: The Aesthetic Projects of Anna Katharine Green and Charles Rohlfs
Lucy Sussex
Domesticating the Art of Detection: Ellen Wood's Johnny Ludlow SeriesV
Alison Jaquet
"The Accomplished Forms of Human Life": The Art and the Aesthetics of the Female Detective
Therie Hendrey-Seabrook
Trent's Last Case: Murder, Modernism, Meaning
Linda Schlossberg
Featured Reviews:
“These important essays underscore how much our understanding of genre owes to the influence of mass culture on the establishment of literary hierarchies.”
English Literature in Transition 51.4 (2008)
“This collection's contribution to the study of detective fiction is undeniable. The reconsideration of well-known authors and works provide truly new analysis of the individual's relationship to the genre. [. . .] The varied approaches and interests of the contributors to this collection made for an informative and enjoyable read, particularly regarding the lesser-known detectives of the period.”
British Association for Victorian Studies, Book Reviews
“a welcome and stimulating addition to the field of detective fiction studies.”
IASLonline (2008)
“an engaging and informative contribution to the study of detective fiction”
Victorian Review 35.1 (2009)
“a number of conceptually assured essays”
Year's Work in English Studies 88.1 (2009)
"This collection's contribution to the study of detective fiction is undeniable. The reconsideration of well-known authors and works provide truly new analysis of the individual's relationship to the genre. [. . .] The varied approaches and interests of the contributors to this collection made for an informative and enjoyable read, particularly regarding the lesser-known detectives of the period.
British Association for Victorian Studies, Book Reviews
"[T]he material is thoroughly-researched and well-presented within the individual chapters, providing the reader both an introduction to and academic discussion of late-Victorian and Edwardian detective fiction."
British Association for Victorian Studies, 04/2008
“Formal Investigations is a welcome and stimulating addition to the field of detective fiction studies.”
IASL Online, 07/2008
252 pages, Paperback. 2007
ISBN 3-89821-593-8
ISSN 1614-465
Deutsch | 
English
Shopping Cart
