1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910457143903321

Autore

Evans Mary <1946->

Titolo

The imagination of evil [[electronic resource] ] : detective fiction and the modern world / / Mary Evans

Pubbl/distr/stampa

London ; ; New York, : Continuum, c2009

ISBN

1-282-45305-X

1-4411-7173-8

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (200 p.)

Collana

Continuum literary studies

Disciplina

809.3872

Soggetti

Detective and mystery stories - History and criticism

Society in literature

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. [176]-181) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Contents; Acknowledgements; Introduction: Crime Writing; Chapter 1: Making Crime; Chapter 2: The Making of the Detective; Chapter 3: Detecting the Modern; Chapter 4: Illegal and Immoral; Chapter 5: Are the Times a' Changing?; Chapter 6: The Dream That Failed; Chapter 7: 'On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts'; Notes; Bibliography; Index

Sommario/riassunto

From its growth in Europe in the nineteenth century, detective fiction has developed into one of the most popular genres of literature and popular culture more widely. In this monograph, Mary Evans examines detective fiction and its complex relationship to the modern and to modernity. She focuses on two key themes: the moral relationship of detection (and the detective) to a particular social world and the attempt to restore and even improve the social world that has been threatened and fractured by a crime, usually that of murder. It is a characteristic of much detective fiction that the dete