Theory and practice of classic detective fiction
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Theory and practice of classic detective fiction
(Contributions to the study of popular culture, no. 62)
Greenwood Press, 1997
Available at 11 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
-
Kobe Shoin Women's University Library / Kobe Shoin Women's College Library
361.6||18||62H082942*
Note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
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
by "Nielsen BookData"