1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910136431603321

Autore

Robinson Michelle <1979->

Titolo

Dreams for Dead Bodies : Blackness, Labor, and the Corpus of American Detective Fiction / / Miriam Michelle Robinson

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Ann Arbor, MI, USA, : University of Michigan Press, 2016

Ann Arbor : , : University of Michigan Press, , [2016]

©[2016]

ISBN

0-472-90060-9

0-472-12181-2

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (265 pages)

Collana

Class : culture

Disciplina

813/.087209

Soggetti

Work in literature

Slavery in literature

Working class in literature

African Americans in literature

Detective and mystery stories, American - History and criticism

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Contents; Acknowledgments; Introduction: The Original Plotmaker; Chapter 1: Reverse Type; Chapter 2: The Art of Framing Lies; Chapter 3: To Have Been Possessed; Chapter 4: The Great Work Remaining before Us; Chapter 5: Prescription: Homicide?; Conclusion: Dream within a Dream; Notes; Bibliography; Index

Sommario/riassunto

Dreams for Dead Bodies: Blackness, Labor, and  the Corpus of American Detective Fiction offers new arguments about the origins of detective fiction in the United States, tracing the lineage of the genre back to unexpected texts and uncovering how authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Pauline Hopkins, and Rudolph Fisher made use of the genre's puzzle-elements to explore the shifting dynamics of race and labor in America. The author constructs an interracial genealogy of detective fiction to create a nuanced picture of the ways that black and white authors appropriated and cultivated literary conventions that coalesced in a recognizable genre at the turn of the twentieth century. These authors tinkered with detective fiction's puzzle-elements to



address a variety of historical contexts, including the exigencies of chattel slavery, the erosion of working-class solidarities by racial and ethnic competition, and accelerated mass production. Dreams for Dead Bodies demonstrates that nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American literature was broadly engaged with detective fiction, and that authors rehearsed and refined its formal elements in literary works typically relegated to the margins of the genre. By looking at these margins, the book argues, we can better understand the origins and cultural functions of American detective fiction.