Flashcards on History and Evolution of Crime Fiction
History and Evolution of Crime Fiction: A Student Guide
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Detective fiction
39 cards
Card 1
Question: What early-19th-century development led to the emergence of detective fiction as a genre?
Answer: Novelists began adapting material from the Newgate Calendar into full-length fiction, shifting focus toward criminals with more social critique, emoti
Card 2
Question: How did early detective fiction use crime thematically beyond mere plot events?
Answer: Crime was used to explore moral ambiguity, class, and injustice.
Card 3
Question: What is the 'police casebook' genre and when did it emerge?
Answer: A genre from the 1840s inspired by professional accounts of doctors and lawyers, featuring fictional or fictionalized detective investigations with th
Card 4
Question: Who were the Bow Street Runners and what was their primary role?
Answer: A mid-18th-century London group of 'thief-takers' who acted like bounty hunters and informers, recovering stolen goods, tracking known criminals, and
Card 5
Question: What is notable about Eugène-François Vidocq's contribution to detective practice?
Answer: A former criminal who became a police informant and founded the Sûreté, promoting the idea that insider knowledge, not moral purity, made effective de
Card 6
Question: Define 'ratiocination' as used in detective fiction.
Answer: The investigative method of Poe’s detective C. Auguste Dupin emphasizing keen observation, logical inference, and imaginatively reconstructing another
Card 7
Question: What is a 'locked-room mystery' and which early example is cited?
Answer: A mystery where a crime seems impossible given the sealed conditions; Poe’s 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue' (1841) is an early example.
Card 8
Question: What is an 'armchair detective' and which case exemplifies this role?
Answer: An investigator who solves a mystery without visiting the crime scene, exemplified by Dupin solving 'The Mystery of Marie Rogêt' through newspapers an
Card 9
Question: What is 'sensation fiction' and what techniques and themes does it use?
Answer: A popular 1860s English fiction combining domestic novel, Gothic, and melodrama techniques, foregrounding suspense and emotional intensity, often feat
Card 10
Question: How does sensation fiction typically structure its use of investigation or discovery?
Answer: The protagonist is usually not an investigator and there's no rational investigation at the center; instead, the discovery of secrets functions as a m