DETECTIVE HISTORY
AND OVERVIEW

Detective fiction, as we know it, began in 1841 with the publication in the U.S. of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue. Set in Paris, the short story featured the first fictional detective, C. Auguste Dupin. The character and story structure became the prototype for many fictional detective stories which were to follow. When Dupin first appeared, the word detective did not even exist!

2020 marked 130 years since the birth of the world’s best-known crime and mystery writer, Dame Agatha Christie, often referred to as the ‘queen of crime’. Writing 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language and another billion in other languages. She is the most widely published author of all time, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare.

Christie wrote during the 1920s and 30s, a period that has since become known as ‘the golden age of detective fiction’, which saw a surge in the publication and popularity of crime and mystery books. The stories were primarily cosy ‘whodunits’ that included an investigation into a puzzling crime, and followed a certain formula of characteristics and clichés: a cast of suspicious characters in a contained location, such as a country house, train or ship.

While creating her great detective Hercule Poirot, Christie cited Sherlock Holmes as an influence. Written between 1887 and 1927, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s four novels and 56 short stories featured Sherlock Holmes employing his powers of observation and deduction to solve complex puzzles – with his trusted magnifying glass in hand. He was the first great fictional detective and remains the most iconic of them all.

In the United States between the 1920s and 50s, a genre of crime fiction called ‘hard-boiled’ became hugely popular, after its emergence in low-quality pulp magazines. The stories were dark, fast-paced and featured private eye detectives who were often tough anti-heroes, investigating violent organised crime while dealing with a corrupt legal system. The tone of these stories was perfect for the Hollywood screen, which contributed to the stylish genre of ‘noir’ cinema which endures today.