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Detective fiction is a branch of crime fiction that centres upon the investigation of a crime, usually murder, by a detective, either professional or amateur. It is closely related to mystery fiction but generally contains more of a puzzle element that must be solved, generally by a single protagonist, either male or female.A common feature of detective fiction is an investigator who is unmarried, with some source of income other than a regular job, and who generally has some pleasing eccentricities or striking characteristics. He or she frequently has a less intelligent assistant, or foil, who is asked to make apparently irrelevant inquiries, and who acts as an audience surrogate for the explanation of the mystery at the end of the story.
1 Whodunnit?
The most widespread subgenre of the detective novel is the whodunnit (usually spelled whodunit in the U.S.),
where great ingenuity may be exercised in narrating the events of the crime and of the subsequent investigation in such a manner as to conceal the identity of the criminal from the reader until the end of the book, when the method and culprit are revealed.
Early archetypes of these stories were the three Auguste Dupin tales by Edgar Allan Poe: The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Mystery of Marie Rogêt , and The Purloined Letter. Poe's detective stories have been described as ratiocinative tales. In stories such as these, the primary concern of the plot is ascertaining truth, and the usual means of obtaining the truth is through a complex and mysterious process combining intuitive logic, astute observation, and perspicacious inference. As a consequence, the crime itself sometimes becomes secondary to the efforts taken to solve it. The Mystery of Marie Rogêt is particularly interesting, as it is a barely fictionalized analysis of the circumstances of the real-life discovery of the body of a young woman named Mary Rogers, in which Poe expounds his theory of what actually happened. The style of the analysis, with its attention to forensic detail, makes it a precursor of the stories about the most famous of all fictional detectives, Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, who in turn set the style for many others in later years, including Holmesian pastiches such as August Derleth's Solar Pons .
Another early archetype of the whodunnit is found as a sub-plot in the vast novel Bleak HouseBleak House is the ninth novel by Charles Dickens, published in 20 monthly parts from March, 1852 through September, 1853. The plot concerns a long-running legal dispute ( Jarndyce and Jarndyce) which has far-reaching consequences for all involved. Dicken (1853) by Charles DickensCharles John Huffam Dickens ( February 7, 1812 June 9, 1870), pen-name " Boz", was an English novelist of the Victorian era. The popularity of his books during his lifetime and to the present is demonstrated by the fact that none of his novels has ever go. The conniving lawyer Tulkinghorn is killed in his office late one night and the crime is investigated by Inspector Bucket of the Metropolitan force. Numerous characters appeared on the staircase leading to Tulkinghorn's office that night, some of them in disguise, and Inspector Bucket must penetrate these mysteries to identify the culprit.
Dickens' protégé, Wilkie CollinsWilkie Collins was a contemporary and friend of a more famous Victorian writer, Charles Dickens. His fiction was classified at the time as 'Sensation fiction', but was the precursor to detective fiction and horror fiction. The Woman in White' is possibly ( 1824Events January 22 Ashantis crush British forces in the Gold Coast Cimetiere du Montparnasse established The Dutch sign the Masang Agreement temporarily ending hostilities in the Padri War March 17 signing of the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824. March 11 The Un- 1889Events January-April January 8 Herman Hollerith receives a patent for his electric tabulating machine January 22 Columbia Phonograph is formed in Washington, DC. February 11 Meiji Constitution of Japan adopted; 1st Diet convenes in 1890 January 30 ? Crown), is credited with the first great mystery novel The Woman in WhiteMusic by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Lyrics by David Zippel. Book by Charlotte Jones. Freely adapted from the novel by Wilkie Collins. Directed by Trevor Nunn. Opened Wednesday, 15 September 2004 at the Palace Theatre, London. Original cast includes Maria Friedm. He is sometimes referred to as the "grandfather of English detective fiction." His novel The MoonstoneThe Moonstone ( 1868) is a mystery novel by Wilkie Collins, sometimes considered to be the first mystery novel in the English language. It tells the story of events surrounding the disappearance of a mysterious yellow diamond, upon which a curse was place (1868) was described by T. S. EliotThomas Stearns Eliot ( September 26, 1888 January 4, 1965), was a major Modernist Anglo-American poet, dramatist, and literary critic. Life and work Eliot was born into a prominent Unitarian Saint Louis, Missouri family; his fifth cousin, Tom Eliot, was C as "the first and greatest of English detective novels" and by Dorothy L. Sayers as "probably the very finest detective story ever written". Although technically preceded by Charles Felix 's The Notting Hill Mystery ( 1865), The Moonstone can claim to have established the genre with several classic features of the twentieth-century 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
- A final twist in the plot
Some readers have suggested even earlier prototypes for the whodunnit, most notably the Old Testament story of Susanna and the Elders (Daniel 13; in the Protestant Bible this story is found in the apocrypha) and the story of the dog and the horse related in the third chapter of Voltaire's Zadig (1747). However, popularity of this genre has only grown in time, and even has made it into the online community.
