Contreras 1

Omar Contreras
WR 37
Dr. Lynda Haas
November 17, 2014
Literature Review: The Blossoming of the Detective Genre
The Detective genre existed before the Victorian era, especially in some of the short
stories of Edgar Allan Poe, but it did not fully blossom until the introduction of Conan Doyles
Sherlock Holmes stories in the late 1800s. Literary scholars agree that Conan Doyle represents
the classical phase of the genres development; in which many of the defining conventions of the
genre were created, such as narrative, structure, the genius hero, and the recreational aspects of
the stories. Scholars also agree that circumstances such as the rise of the middle-class, and the
creation of an incompetent police force, paired with these conventions helped the detective genre
to flower. The success of Conan Doyles stories proves this to be true as the Victorian middleclass greatly relished them.
The industrial revolution resulted in the rise of a new socioeconomic class: the middleclass. This population was a determining factor in the rise of the detective genre. According to
Leroy Panek, author of An Introduction to the Detective Story, The Victorian age shows the
emergence of several new classes of readers brought into being by universal educationThe
most important of these, however, was the middle-class male reader who long ago had the
ability, but not the time, to read fiction(9). This new middle-class supplied the detective genre
with a circumstantial audience; a necessary element for the genre to become famous.
Complimented with changes to narrative, and structure, the detective genre was beginning to
bloom.

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Panek also states that, before the creation of the short story, the novel was a slow-paced
and rambling form written for people of leisure (10). Authors such as Poe, and later on, Conan
Doyle, slimmed down these romantic styled novels, from the three volume format towards a
more well-ordered novel, because of the need for economy, compression, and consistency,
the short story [could not] afford the casualness of the romance. If the hero says at the end he
saw or found something, it had better be there in the story (10). These well-ordered novels, with
a fixed beginning, and ending, allowed the middle-class a new recreational outlet that they
previously did not have the time for. The author of The Reader and the Detective Story,
George N. Dove, further demonstrates this as he states that both the crossword puzzle and the
detective novel are free of stress, each offers the reader a task or set of related tasks, both are
shaped by convention, and neither has any goal beyond itself (3). Both Dove and Panek would
agree that a reason the detective genre became successful was because of the adaptation towards
formulaic short stories. These short stories provided leisurely reads to the middle-class that was
unavailable to them. The formula of these well-ordered novels includes, according to Dove,
the detective-protagonist, who is the prime mover of the action of the narrative, the detection
plot, which supplies the major theme of the story, a problem to be solved, and that there is
the solution, which is always reached before the story ends (23-24). This formula is exemplified
in Conan Doyles The Red-Headed League.
The protagonist, Sherlock Holmes, is approached by a red-headed pawnbroker named
Jabez Wilson who is inquiring whether or not he was a victim of a practical joke. Through
eccentric investigation, and astounding deduction Holmes determines Jabez is not the victim of a
practical joke, but instead the victim of an attempted bank robbery. The case was presented and
solved without being extended into a three volume format that romantic writers made famous.

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Both Dove and Panek make the same point that the structure and narrative of the short-story,
gave rise to the detective genre. The incompetent police force of the Victorian era was also a
determining circumstance in the blossoming of the detective genre.
Rifled with rampant crime, Victorian London was unsafe for the middle-class. The early
metropolitan police was unable to alleviate this; the result was an untrusted and disliked
Victorian police force. In An Introduction to the Detective Story, Leroy Panek states that if
readers in the early nineteenth century saw the police detective in literature and life as a lowerclass creature who was either incompetent or corrupt, they increasingly saw, in literature if not in
life, the genius as the hero(9). Conan Doyle addresses the incompetence of the police in The
Red-Headed League when Holmes calls Detective Jones an absolute imbecile in his
profession. Compared to Sherlock Holmes, the metropolitan police were in fact imbeciles
because Holmes used methods of investigation far ahead of his time. Sherlock Holmes was the
characterization of the genius hero.
Literary scholars agree that another convention helping the genre flourish was the genius
hero. Sherlock Holmes was able to, through his genius inferring skills, solves many crimes the
metropolitan police were baffled at; complimented with the resentment towards the police, the
Victorian middle-class viewed Conan Doyles genius protagonist as a hero. According to Panek
the developing concept of the genius in writing, accompanied with the circumstantial
incompetent metropolitan police force, made the detective-genre more appealing to the Victorian
middle-class. (10) English scholar, and author of Murder Will Out: The Detective in Fiction,
T.J. Binyon, sets forth that Holmes is the first of the great detectives. He is probably the greatest
of them all, and certainly the best known (12). As Panek articulates how readers of the
Victorian era admired the genius-hero, Binyon points out that Sherlock Holmes was the best

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genius-hero. Both scholars would agree that Sherlock Holmes was the most perfect possible
protagonist to make the detective-genre as popular as it was during the Victorian Era. Readers
today are amazed at how amazingly genius Sherlock Holmes is. One example of his aweinducing abilities is shown, again, in The Red-Headed League when upon examining Mr.
Jabez Wilson. From a glance he is able to deduce that he has at some time done manual labour,
that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a
considerable amount of writing lately Sherlock Holmes, the genius, was an admired hero to
the Victorian middle-class.
Factors such as the formulaic, conventional short story, and an admiration for a genius
hero, in Victorian times, when nothing like the sort existed in real-life, allowed the detectivegenre to flourish. Till this day, the detective-genre remains popular even after modernization
because of these conventions.

Works-Cited
Binyon, T.J. "Murder Will Out": The Detective in Fiction. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1989. PDF File. November 6, 2014
Dove, George N. The Different Story. The Reader and the Detective Story. Bowling Green,
OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1997. PDF File. November 6, 2014
Panek, Leroy. Beginnings. An Introduction to the Detective Story. Bowling Green, OH:
Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1987. PDF File. November 6, 2014
Doyle, A.C. (1892) The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. London, England: George Newnes
Ltd. November 6, 2014