Making the Detective Story American: Biggers, Van Dine and Hammett and the Turning Point of the Genre, 1925-1930

by J.K. Van Dover

Overview

This critical text examines the fiction of Earl Derr Biggers, S. S. Van Dine, and Dashiell Hammett during a crucial half-decade when they transformed the detective story. The characters they created, including Charlie Chan, Philo Vance, and the Continental Op, represented a new style of detective solving crimes in fresh ways. Their successes would push crime and detective fiction in startling and rejuvenating directions. Topics covered include the highbrow detective, the ethnic detective, the exploitation of contemporary sensations, and the exploitation of women.

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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780786448951
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers
Publication date:	04/20/2010
Series:	Genre/Detective & Mystery
Pages:	231
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

J.K. Van Dover taught in the English Department of Lincoln University for 38 years; he has also taught as a Fulbright Professor of American Literature in Germany, China, Austria, and Slovakia. He has published extensively on detective fiction.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments     
Preface     

1. Introduction: The Detective and the 1920s     
2. He Used to Be a Highbrow: Intellect, Taste, and the Detection of Crime in the 1920s     
3. No Chinaman: Ethnicity and the Detective in the 1920s     
4. Ripped from the Headlines: Translating Sensational Crime Fact into Popular Crime Fiction in the 1920s     
5. Enterprising, Flippant, Hard: Young American Women in Detective Fiction of the 1920s     

Appendix A: Three Brief Biographies
Oh Yes, There Was a Man Named Earl Derr Biggers     
Willard Wright (S.S. Van Dine)     
Dashiell Hammett     
Appendix B: Mystery and Detection Bestsellers, 1925–1935     
Appendix C: Films Based on the Works of Earl Derr Biggers, S.S. Van Dine, and Dashiell Hammett     
Chapter Notes     
Bibliography     
Index     

Editorial Reviews

For style, scholarship, and analysis, Van Dover has long been one of the best academic writers on detective fiction...significant”—Mystery Scene.

From the Publisher

For style, scholarship, and analysis, Van Dover has long been one of the best academic writers on detective fiction...significant

Mystery Scene