1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910955218003321

Autore

Bedore P

Titolo

Dime Novels and the Roots of American Detective Fiction / / by P. Bedore

Pubbl/distr/stampa

London : , : Palgrave Macmillan UK : , : Imprint : Palgrave Macmillan, , 2013

ISBN

9781349449934

1349449938

9781137288653

1137288655

Edizione

[1st ed. 2013.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (221 p.)

Collana

Crime Files, , 2947-8359

Classificazione

HIS038000LIT004020LIT004230

Disciplina

813/.087209

Soggetti

Sex

America - Literatures

Literature

Crime - Sociological aspects

Literature - Philosophy

Culture - Study and teaching

Gender Studies

North American Literature

Crime and Society

Literary Theory

Cultural Theory

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 and index.

Nota di contenuto

Cover; Half-Title; Title; Copyright; Dedication; Contents; List of Appendix Tables; Acknowledgments; 1 The Case of the Missing Detectives;  or, Reassessing the American Contribution to Detective Fiction; Introduction; Construing the absence of the dime novel detective; Who is the American dime novel detective?; Disrupting existing narratives about detective fiction; Some organizing principles; 2 The Happy-Ending Deception;  or, Uncovering the Subversive Potential of Detective Dime Novels; Introduction; The primacy of



endings: a theoretical excursion

Methods and trends: (de)coding the dime novel detectiveA shadowy detective and a police captain: gender bending and genre blending; Forced marriages, faked weddings, and gendered problems of closure; The detectives that don't work out: death and corruption in the detective position; A Terrible Ending: an unambiguous antidote to happy endings; In conclusion ...; 3 The Case of the Contaminated Icon;  or, Allan Pinkerton's Dangerous Detective Doubles; Introduction; Allan Pinkerton's iconography: all-seeing eyes, Civil War spies, and the Underground Railroad

Pinkerton's generic breadth: classical, hardboiled, police, and diverse detectivesContamination and the problems of deep cover; Outlaw doubling lite: the humorous logic of bodily substitution; Outlaw doubling darkened through the prism of graphic torture; Conclusion; 4 Playing with the Ace of Hearts;  or, Mentorship, Sportsmanship, and Nick Carter's Epistemological Dilemmas; Introduction; Nick Carter's school for detectives: mentorship and fair play; The mediating power of games; The ethical and erotic mediations of the femme fatale; Proto-postmodern epistemological investigations; Conclusion

5 Faulkner, Twain, and the Legacy of Dime Novel DetectivesIntroduction; White elephants, doubled barrels, and Mark Twain's detective obsessions; Chasing the unknown gambit;  or, mentorship and games in Nick Carter and Gavin Stevens; Conclusion; 6 Conclusions and Directions for Future Research; Appendix Tables; Notes; References; Index

Sommario/riassunto

This book reveals subversive representations of gender, race and class in detective dime novels (1860-1915), arguing that inherent tensions between subversive and conservative impulses-theorized as contamination and containment-explain detective fiction's ongoing popular appeal to readers and to writers such as Twain and Faulkner.