Chapter 1 – History of Detective Genre

1.1. Where and how it all started

It has been made the case that it was the distinctive character of the
detective and that it underlay his emergence as a type of hero in a post-
Darwinian world, which is a special world where the detective and his
methods flawlessly work and make the detective story a permanent lively
genre. There have been distinguished four major phases in the development
of the genre: the first being from Poe to Conan Doyle and Chesterton, also
named as Methodical Detective (or Classical I) , which is a phase of
diversity and, somewhat, experimental; but the second phase, beginning
around 1920, is seen as one of consolidation, with Sherlock Holmes casting
a great shadow, and writers like Christie, or Sayers pressing the form
towards novel – the period known as the Golden Age (or Classical II). The
third phase, in the beginning of the 1920s was the American Hard-boiled
revision of the form and it is widely understood, and there is little doubt
that this form underwent a decisive softening in the 1970s that produced
the fourth phase, what J.K. Van Dover called the Engaged detective (or
Hard-boiled II).
The detective story made the transition from tour de force to genre in
1843, when Edgar Allan Poe published The Mystery of Marie Roget as the
sequel to The Murders in the Rue Morgue in 1841. There was a prehistory
of stories featuring the study of clues in the investigation of crime, stories
that might include: Newgate Calendar from 1773, Voltaire’s Zadig from
1747, and William Godwin’s The Adventures of Caleb Williams from 1794;
and by some lights Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus from fifth century BC. But
it was Poe’s hero, M. Auguste Dupin, who established the figure of the
detective as a recognizable and reusable icon in the literary world. [Van
Dover, 2005: 21]
The first Dupin story had a major impact on Poe and his audience, of
such intensity that is was sufficient to justify a second account of the
detective’s thoughtful analysis of the circumstances of a murder. The
Mystery of Marie Roget demonstrated not only that Dupin’s initial triumph
had to be repeated, but that the repetition could build economically upon
the innovations of the first adventure, reusing the detective, the method,
and the narrator, but in a way also reusing the audience by offering it both a
desired repetition and a desired variation: familiar characters and scenes,
pattern of action and new details. Although under constant pressure for
marketable material, Poe approached just once more the composition of
popular fiction, with a third Dupin tale, entitled The Purloined Letter.
In 1865, Emile Gaboriau adapted Poe’s paradigm to novel-lenght
narrative and established an audience in France, and in translation, in
Britain and America. Then, in 1887, Arthur Conan Doyle took up this
paradigm and produced four very popular novels and fifty-six extremely
popular short stories. The repetitiveness of the standard Holmes story came
to frustrate Conan Doyle as an artist, but had greatly enriched him as
manufacturer: the appetite for a detective who could tirelessly repeat his
signature performance with undiminished brilliance proved to be
insatiable. Many variations on the Dupin–Lecoq–Holmes paradigm
appeared in the late nineteenth and twentieth century, and dozens were
sufficiently appealing to Anglo-American readers so that they could justify
repeating their adventures again and again. The mystery, or detective genre
became what it has been for nearly a century and a half, the formula in the
Anglo-American popular fiction market that surpassed all others.
As a genre of crime fiction, the detective novel has its traditional
elements that can be found in all stories according to the Encyclopaedia
Britannica:
a. the presumed ideal crime;
b. the character wrongly accused or suspected;
c. the mistakes and wrong evidence found by the police;
d. the superior intelligence and wit of the detective;
 e. the surprising ending, in which the detective reveals how the culprit
was there all the time; (Encyclopaedia Britannica, np)

But there is more to it than that and the most useful division is the most
obvious one, two major traditions have defined the genre: the Classical
detective story and that of the Hard-boiled detective story, the last one
rising through a deliberate revolt against the former. Laura Hunt, for
example, divided the detective story into Hard-boiled and Cold, where
“Scientific” and “Cold” are clearly attributes that Sherlock Holmes would
adopt, qualities which underlay his power to analyze successfully what had
gone wrong in England, more exactly in London.
The basic assumption was that if the detective looked clearly at the actual
physical evidence, listened carefully to what was said around him, and
thought about all these and then put them together, he would easily
discover who had done the crime. The world in which he found himself was
essentially an organised place where decency had been violated by a
criminal whose deeds had left visible traces in the physical and human
environment. Crime was considered an anomaly and by tracing the
evidence that the unusual deed had left behind, the detective could find and
arrest the criminal and erase the disruption. From Dupin to Poirot,
detectives followed this method, and automatically, inherited and inhabited
the mentioned world.
The Hard-boiled detectives, “who are always drunk and talk out of
corners of their mouths” [Van Dover, 2005:23], denigrated this method
and walked away from this world, and chose a world that is not naturally
ordered, where violating decency is common, they confront different
criminals, as well as atypical victims. Even so, Hard-boiled detectives
manage to achieve victory, as their fellow Classical colleagues do, and to the
readers’ pleasure, in the end they always catch the villain.
This division between Hard-boiled and Classical represents the Anglo-
centric influence, but then again, so does the genre, and many writers from
all over the world have acknowledged this Anglophone priority, especially
Raymond Chandler and Arthur Conan Doyle , who seem to have inspired
writers around the world.

1.2. The Methodical Detective, or Classical I (1841 – 1920)

The Classical detective story in the beginning was preferred to be short,
as it was a period of experimentation as the genre defined itself and started
to secure its audience.
The roman policier should be on the model of the short story, rather than the novel.
- Chesterton
[“On Detective Novels”, Generally Speaking, 5]
From Poe to Conan Doyle, the focus is made on the detective’s forceful
intervention in a time of crisis and ending with his dramatic and
unexpected solution to the mystery, or to the puzzle. Wilkie Collin’s and
Charles Dickens’ works fall into the category where writers played with
employing the conventions of the paradigm in novels, but these tended to
be novels with detectives in them, rather that detective novels. Although
they are not protagonists, Sergeant Cuff (1868) and Inspector Bucket
(1852-53) are memorable figures. And then we have Anna Katherine Green
with Ebenezer Gryce from 1878, as an example, who managed to produce
fantastic detective novels, rather than notable detectives. But then Emile
Gaboriau came along with his modern views for an England (1880) when
the phrase “detective story” was still a novelty to be printed in inverted
commas. (Kayman, 131)
In the first phase, the detective is an eccentric individual with an
extraordinary intelligence, put face to face with a head-scratching crime,
the emphasis is on the cleverness of the plot and how the detective uses his
“powers”, thus leading to a short story which was preferred, but lacks
characterization and puts a light on the plot. As a result, the detective story
is focused on the power of a rare man than can see past every puzzle, and
the common man, such as Dupin’s companion and Inspector G, or Dr.
Watson and Inspector Lestrade, remains in the dark about the
circumstances of the crime all through the story, until the marvellous
detective shines light on the path of understanding the happenings, because
the natural linkage between appearances and reality has been disrupted,
the usual signs of innocence and guilt have become unclear. It takes the
magnificent intelligence, some would call it genius, of the detective to read
through to the truth, but in reality what he possesses is a method new to
everyone.
Sherlock Holmes appeared in the early 1890s in The Strand and struck a
chord in an audience eager to be told that the surrounding rubbish, such as
cigarette ashes, or abandoned hats, is meaningful and that these could solve
the unbalance brought by a criminal into the world and vindicate the
innocent. Holmes was the embodiment of a mixture between the
disciplined scientist and the romantic egoist. Dupin was barely more than a
coherent method with a pinch of arrogance, whereas Holmes, in some of his
adventures, exposed his own individual character, essentially remaining a
detective, but began to rise as a man with a personal past, and quirky tastes.
Nevertheless, as mentioned before, Holmes cast an influential shadow
and soon many eccentric detectives would emerge resembling him, such as
Chesterton’s Catholic Father Brown (1911), and the more methodical in
their approach to detection, like Jacques Futrelle’s Thinking Machine
(1907). And in comparison, later there would be an appearance of a number
of detectives totally opposite to Holmes, who were not rational or scientific,
for example Sax Rohmer’s Morris Klaw (1920).
However, the main idea remained where Poe put it, which was the
detectiveness of the detective: he is created to solve problems, he is
expected to attract and retain readers due to the fact that he can solve
mysteries. The detective would begin each and every investigation as a
clean slate, unaffected by previous personal, or professional experiences.
He is without personal memory, providing this example as proof: he may
recall what sort of mud appears in which district of London and recall
obscure marks at the scene of the crime, or subtle meanings in testimonies,
but he does not recall his own childhood, intimate relations, or even
himself. He is proof that past events can be recovered, but his past is out of
reach to the reader, this method being used not as a result of incompetence,
but rather an intended effect.
In the three Dupin stories there is a display of the five major conventions
used later in the detective stories: the locked room; narration by the
detective’s less clever companion; competition with the less clever police;
the detective’s use of disguise and ability to blend in; and the closing
recapitulation of the logical steps that led the detective to his conclusions.
[Van Dover, 2005: 28] The narratives contain some of the prosperity that
Poe favoured in his fiction, rare allusions and poses of profundity, where
Dupin’s Paris is not meant to be France’s Paris, whereas Conan Doyle chose
to make Sherlock Holmes’ London more than realistic enough. The
essential appeal of the series was constituted by the brief stories of Holmes’
successful attempts to restore order in London through methodical
investigations, the ultimate sources of disorder happening in London,
rather than America or India.
The first phase prevails the following urban settings: Dupin and Lecoq’s
Paris; Holmes, Hewitt and Thorndyke’s London; Craig Kennedy’s New
York; and The Thinking Machine’s Boston. A single short story could not
capture a cityscape, but a series could, so the short stories published in the
new Strand Magazine and first collected as the Adventures of Sherlock
Holmes in 1892 would put Holmes in a position of an icon for centuries to
come. The natural scene of the detective would be the interior, usually a
middle to upper-class interior, for these would be the people that could
afford a private detective. The interior of Holmes’ personal home, located
on 221B Baker Street, would often be the starting scene that would then
lead the detective and his companion across various environments of
Victorian London and the surrounding countryside, and leaving him to
encounter lascars and monarchs; sadistic boys, victimized women; artistic
and country squires, Conan Doyle even adding commentaries upon the
empire and the people, the race, the education, the war. Thus, the centre of
the Methodical detective story is always the detective’s ability to cleverly
reveal the web of actions which led to the crime.

1.3. The Golden Age Detective, or Classical II (1920 – 1940)

The most celebrated writers were John Dickson Carr, Ellery Queen and
Agatha Christie, so became so good at plotting that they tended to be
overlooked by the readers, although their qualities for characters, settings
were far better in comparison to the writers who managed to attract the
public with effortless plots. The detective’s world became one of privilege
and it was considered to be pushed toward comedy of manners, but the
detective’s remarkable intelligence continues to receive positive views, but
the methodological origin is reduced. The muscular scientist, Sherlock
Holmes, is replaced with a cultured, more aristocratic deduction. This new
detective’s ingenuity is given through the solving of complex puzzles,
because the Golden Age novelists often created complicated mysteries,
frequently requiring the production of a map, or a timetable. In comparison
to the Methodological detective who was aggressive in his investigation and
was forced into sudden, often dramatic, situations, the second phase
detective reserves his key interpretation, he devotes his attention during the
early and middle part of the investigation, all this for the grand finale which
often required a whole chapter to complete. Short story characters are
permitted to act abruptly with explanatory gestures, whereas in a novel
these gestures must have a larger basis that envisions the character’s
pattern of action.
Another change would appear with Agatha Christie, for she was
acknowledged as the mistress of the Golden Age form. Her signature
involves expanding a full cast of stereotypes, and when least expected
turning, one or more, individuals against type. She introduced Hercule
Poirot in her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles in 1920, and Miss
Marple a decade later in The Murder at the Vicarage. She produced best-
sellers up until the 1970s, with over thirty volumes featuring the retired
Belgian policeman. Dupin offered ample lectures on his analytic
techniques, Holmes offered methodological principles on the “Science of
Deduction”, but Poirot refers to his “little gray cells” and established his
authenticity by solving the puzzling case at hand. Christie puts the focus on
the mystery, where Poirot stands up to dominate the narrative only when
he has mastered the plot. He has no apparent life, no past, he was
attributed only with the compulsive need for neatness and an impressive
collection of Gallic interjections, other than that the reader knows nothing.
Similar to Christie, John Dickson Carr’s detectives, Bencolin (1930),
Merivalle (1933) and Fell (1933) are exaggerated caricatures, he works with
atmosphere and plot, rather than with the detective.
The Golden Age villains display great ingenuity, timing, and patience, the
crimes they commit are often improbable, though possible. Of course, the
main plot itself is considerably complex, involving strange pathologies and
complicated devices. For example, there is a possibility of being twelve
random people, individually affected by the crime, then twelve could agree
to execute the criminal, and board the same train as the criminal and the
detective; they could each do the crime, and because the train happened to
be snowed in, the detective could investigate and uncover the truth; the
authorities might agree to overlook this truth.
“Murder mystery” becomes a phrase in the Golden Age because the truth
is actually the truth of the murder, but Dupin’s cases do not involve
murder, Sherlock Holmes has only 23 out of 60 adventures that have
homicide investigations, 20 percent is robbery, 13 percent is fear of harm
and scandal, and 10 percent is disappearance, all of which constitute the
major categories. But a capital crime was required in order to justify the
length of the novel and this gave the genre a clear identity. The detective
identifies the criminal, then society disposes of him or her through judicial
system as he is unfit for a society, for the truth is always discovered, and the
story ends, usually, before the disposal takes place, so there are few chances
of creating an avenger. Many plots strain for brilliance, and many that are
hardly strained, Christie and Carr are such examples for they consistently
compose plots that fairly provide, and fairly conceal the information which
a reader needs, both provide pure surprises: Carr gives a good deal of
rhetorical “huffing and grunting”, whereas Christie offers deceptive
easiness. The Golden Age mentality was that everyone is innocent, except
the villain, and that the detective can absolve the innocent by indicting the
guilty one.
Mystery writers emerged in the Golden Age, such as: Poe, Conan Doyle,
Chesterton, and Gaboriau. Conan Doyle was so disturbed by the prospect of
becoming a mystery writer that he had Holmes confront Dr. Moriarty at
Reichenbach. Although she published some romances under the name of
Mary Westmacott, Christie knew her fate was Poirot, she wrote Curtain in
1940, but did not publish it until 1975. For the generation of readers who
experienced profoundly the First World War, mystery writers produced a
narrative in which they promised an engaging escape, the world that can be
re-orderable, but for the Second World War generation the genre’s
credibility was diminishing, remaining as a nostalgia only for the parent’s
childhood. Even so, sufficient audience remained so the great writers,
Christie and Carr, could publish still, way into the 1970s. The James Bond
series, through the 1950’s, prepared the way for the espionage fiction, and
the new writers that took up the Classical model of the detective story
would continue to satisfy the readers with intricate plots. Also, they would
return the notion where the detective would become himself an object of
study, developing the biographies of the investigators in addition to the plot
of the crime, the life and relationships of the detective, this way, the
Classical tradition bended itself to a trend which made its initial inroads in
the American alternative to the Golden Age.
 1.4. The Hard-boiled Detective (1920 – 1960)
Carroll John Daly is generally acknowledged to be the initiator of the
Hard-boiled paradigm. Race Williams’ first adventure was published in
Black Mask in June 1923, four months before the debut of Hammett’s
Continental Op. Though Race Williams did not grow as a character and
Daly did not grow as a writer, Race Williams remained a very popular figure
in Black Mask. The greatest writers in the Hard-boiled tradition are
undisputed: they are Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler; the only
debate is over which of the two is the greater. Hammett is favored by those
who prefer authenticity, Chandler by those who prefer art; but Hammett is
far from artless, and Chandler certainly claims a kind of authenticity. [Van
Dover, 46]
This type of detective was a tough man, in a 1920s and 1930s America, a
brutal place run by industrialists, corrupt politician and police, gangsters,
and everything is set in a big, often rainy, city. The crimes are no longer
unconventional, and the detective is no longer an intellectual, the solution
is not completely satisfying though being the final one, but in the end the
detective still gets his man, but through means of stubborn persistence,
rather than brilliance. A number of aspiring and productive writers, like
before mentioned Chandler and Hammett, adopted the Hard-boiled style,
filling the pulp magazines with fast-moving tales, singularly tough
detectives, and easily undressed women. The detective is in revolt against
the details and dishonesties of his genre as well as those of his world, and
he expresses himself through ironic laughter, though not amused. He seeks
the felon because he can, not because by doing so he could restore the
balance in the world, it’s just a job. He has no illusions of restoring
innocence, but his task is to solve the given case.
Sam Spade to Brigid O’Shaughnessy:
I’m a detective and expecting me to run criminals down and then let them go free is
like asking a dog to catch a rabbit and let it go. It can be done, all right, and sometimes
it is done, but it’s not the natural thing.
 (1972, pp 226)
In the Hard-boiled world, readers can hardly see cultural heritage,
such as museums or recital halls, for the detective lives in a raw American
urban world, where spending money on luxurious cars and club
memberships is normal, and he walks down streets where he finds everyday
workers and organized crime. This world first appeared in the novel Red
Harvest written by Dashiell Hammett in 1929, where Personville, a small
town, portrayed as an abstract of the Great Wrong Place, and where
everything is corrupt. But then there are the big cities – like Los Angeles,
New York, Chicago – where again the detective can’t even pretend that he
succeeded in restoring some niceness or purity, not for a single moment.
The Hard-boiled paradigm emerged first in short fiction, much like the
Classical, but the chief vehicle for the short stories was not a middle-class
journal like the Strand; it was the decidedly working-class medium of the
pulp magazine.
Preceded by Detective Magazine, and followed by Dime Detective, Dime
Mystery, Spicy Detective, Hollywood Detective, and others, the chief
vehicle was Black Mask, founded in 1920. [Van Dover, 41] And so the new
paradigm took shape in rather quick pace: the working alone, tough
detective, usually carrying and most cases using a gun, was narrating the
story as he went on, during which he received threats and got beaten up, all
while, at least once, encountering a damsel in distress. The Hard-boiled
detective is self-reliant, who depends on his street-smarts, specifically on
his knowledge of the ways that the corrupt city works – there is no “science
of deduction” – and by doing so he ensures his survival leading to victory in
his passage through the confrontations that lead to revelations. While
Dupin and Holmes must have been extraordinarily well tutored in
childhood, the Hard-boiled detectives went to American public schools,
thus speaking the language, acting, and suffering actual physical trauma as
real working men might do. [Van Dover, 43, 44] At the same time, the
crimes are also realistic, fairly brutal affairs, in comparison to the Classical
period where the reader would see murder by poison or by conspiracy.

1.5. The Engaged Detective (1970 –)

From the Hard-boiled model of detective, the Engaged paradigm
emerged with its argumentative commitment towards realism and to social
analysis. The new Classical detectives, like Kate Fansler, were given
complex lives and current social concerns, all though the Hard-boiled
writers were the ones that gave the detective empathy, sensibility towards
other people which would fit him the role of the social critic, for example,
Philip Marlowe, who only gained a life in his final appearances. The
Engaged detectives are still outsiders, but they are never alone.
The genre shifted in 1970, and the private eye would remain a hero,
but he is less alone, and he becomes often a she, thus the appearance of
more female detectives. Though remaining isolated, this detective acquires
friends, and lovers, unlike previous detectives that only had, maybe, a
comrade that was trustworthy and had the role of the narrator, such as
Watson.