The All Detective Collection

Detective fiction in the English-speaking world is considered to have begun in with the publication of Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", [12] featuring "the first fictional detective, the eccentric and brilliant C. When the character first appeared, the word detective did not even exist. However, the character's name, "Dupin", originated from the English word dupe or deception. Poe referred to his stories as "tales of ratiocination ".

In Monsieur Lecoq , the title character is adept at disguise, a key characteristic of detectives. Another early example of a whodunit is a subplot in the novel Bleak House by Charles Dickens. The conniving lawyer Tulkinghorn is killed in his office late one night, and the crime is investigated by Inspector Bucket of the Metropolitan police force.

Numerous characters appeared on the staircase leading to Tulkinghorn's office that night, some of them in disguise, and Inspector Bucket must penetrate these mysteries to identify the murderer. Dickens also left a novel unfinished at his death, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Eliot called Collins's novel The Moonstone "the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels Sayers called it "probably the very finest detective story ever written".

Although The Moonstone is usually seen as the first detective novel, there are other contenders for the honor. A number of critics suggest that the lesser known Notting Hill Mystery —63 , written by the pseudonymous "Charles Felix" later identified as Charles Warren Adams [25] [26] , preceded it by a number of years and first used techniques that would come to define the genre. Peters, who is lower class and mute, and who is initially dismissed both by the text and its characters. In short, it is difficult to establish who was the first to write the English-language detective novel, as various authors were exploring the theme simultaneously.

In , Arthur Conan Doyle created Sherlock Holmes , arguably the most famous of all fictional detectives. Although Sherlock Holmes is not the original fiction detective he was influenced by Poe's Dupin and Gaboriau's Lecoq , his name has become a byword for the part. Conan Doyle stated that the character of Holmes was inspired by Dr. Like Holmes, Bell was noted for drawing large conclusions from the smallest observations. Conan Doyle wrote four novels and fifty-six short stories featuring Holmes, and all but four stories are narrated by Holmes's friend, assistant, and biographer, Dr.

Female writers constituted a major portion of notable Golden Age writers. Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Various conventions of the detective genre were standardized during the Golden Age, and in , some of them were codified by writer Ronald Knox in his 'Decalogue' of rules for detective fiction. One of his rules was to avoid supernatural elements so that the focus remained on the mystery itself.

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The most widespread subgenre of the detective novel became the whodunit or whodunnit, short for "who done it? In this subgenre, great ingenuity may be exercised in narrating the crime, usually a homicide, and the subsequent investigation. This objective was to conceal the identity of the criminal from the reader until the end of the book, when the method and culprit are both revealed.

According to scholars Carole Kismaric and Marvi Heiferman, "The golden age of detective fiction began with high-class amateur detectives sniffing out murderers lurking in rose gardens, down country lanes, and in picturesque villages. Many conventions of the detective-fiction genre evolved in this era, as numerous writers — from populist entertainers to respected poets — tried their hands at mystery stories.

He created ingenious and seemingly impossible plots and is regarded as the master of the "locked room mystery". Priestley, who specialised in elaborate technical devices.

In the United States, the whodunit subgenre was adopted and extended by Rex Stout and Ellery Queen, along with others. The emphasis on formal rules during the Golden Age produced great works, albeit with highly standardized form.

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A whodunit or whodunnit a colloquial elision of "Who [has] done it? The reader or viewer is provided with the clues from which the identity of the perpetrator may be deduced before the story provides the revelation itself at its climax. The "whodunit" flourished during the so-called " Golden Age " of detective fiction, between and , when it was the predominant mode of crime writing.

Agatha Christie is not only the most famous Golden Age writer, but also considered one of the most famous authors of all genres of all time. Many of the most popular books of the Golden Age were written by Agatha Christie. She produced long series of books featuring detective characters like Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, amongst others. Rampo was an admirer of western mystery writers. He gained his fame in early s, when he began to bring to the genre many bizarre, erotic and even fantastic elements. This is partly because of the social tension before World War II.

It demands restoration of the classic rules of detective fiction and the use of more self-reflective elements. In the ensuing years, he played a major role in rendering them first into classical and later into vernacular Chinese. Especially in the United States, detective fiction emerged in the s, and gained prominence in later decades, as a way for authors to bring stories about various subcultures to mainstream audiences.

One scholar wrote about the detective novels of Tony Hillerman , set among the Native American population around New Mexico , "many American readers have probably gotten more insight into traditional Navajo culture from his detective stories than from any other recent books. Warshawski books have explored the various subcultures of Chicago.

Martin Hewitt, created by British author Arthur Morrison in , is one of the first examples of the modern style of fictional private detective. This character is described as an "'Everyman' detective meant to challenge the detective-as-superman that Holmes represented. By the late s, Al Capone and the Mob were inspiring not only fear, but piquing mainstream curiosity about the American crime underworld.

Popular pulp fiction magazines like Black Mask capitalized on this, as authors such as Carrol John Daly published violent stories that focused on the mayhem and injustice surrounding the criminals, not the circumstances behind the crime. Very often, no actual mystery even existed: In the s, the private eye genre was adopted wholeheartedly by American writers. One of the primary contributors to this style was Dashiell Hammett with his famous private investigator character, Sam Spade.

In the late s, Raymond Chandler updated the form with his private detective Philip Marlowe , who brought a more intimate voice to the detective than the more distanced "operative's report" style of Hammett's Continental Op stories.

Several feature and television movies have been made about the Philip Marlowe character. The heroes of these novels are typical private eyes, very similar to or plagiarizing Raymond Chandler's work. Archer, like Hammett's fictional heroes, was a camera eye, with hardly any known past.

Two of Macdonald's strengths were his use of psychology and his beautiful prose, which was full of imagery. Like other ' hardboiled ' writers, Macdonald aimed to give an impression of realism in his work through violence, sex and confrontation. Newman reprised the role in The Drowning Pool in Michael Collins , pseudonym of Dennis Lynds, is generally considered the author who led the form into the Modern Age.

His PI, Dan Fortune , was consistently involved in the same sort of David-and-Goliath stories that Hammett, Chandler, and Macdonald wrote, but Collins took a sociological bent, exploring the meaning of his characters' places in society and the impact society had on people.

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Full of commentary and clipped prose, his books were more intimate than those of his predecessors, dramatizing that crime can happen in one's own living room. The PI novel was a male-dominated field in which female authors seldom found publication until Marcia Muller , Sara Paretsky , and Sue Grafton were finally published in the late s and early s. Each author's detective, also female, was brainy and physical and could hold her own.

An inverted detective story, also known as a " howcatchem ", is a murder mystery fiction structure in which the commission of the crime is shown or described at the beginning, [44] usually including the identity of the perpetrator. There may also be subsidiary puzzles, such as why the crime was committed, and they are explained or resolved during the story. This format is the opposite of the more typical " whodunit ", where all of the details of the perpetrator of the crime are not revealed until the story's climax. Many detective stories have police officers as the main characters.

These stories may take a variety of forms, but many authors try to realistically depict the routine activities of a group of police officers who are frequently working on more than one case simultaneously. Some of these stories are whodunits; in others, the criminal is well known, and it is a case of getting enough evidence. In the s the police procedural evolved as a new style of detective fiction. Unlike the heroes of Christie, Chandler, and Spillane, the police detective was subject to error and was constrained by rules and regulations.

As Gary Huasladen says in Places for Dead Bodies , "not all the clients were insatiable bombshells, and invariably there was life outside the job. Writers include Ed McBain , P. James , and Bartholomew Gill. These works are set in a time period considered historical from the author's perspective, and the central plot involves the solving of a mystery or crime usually murder.

His suspicions are confirmed when it is discovered that a valuable gem has been stolen from the collector's safe, and Captain Street of Homicide shows up mere moments after the shooting, explaining that the murder was reported 20 minutes ago. Wong, Street, and their old friend Professor Janney combine wits and resources to solve this most perplexing case.

The famous private detective James Lee Wong takes it personally when a Chinese princess is killed with a poison dart in his own home. He sets out to find her killer, with help from reporter Bobbie Logan, the latest bad-choice-of-dates for Wong's friend, Captain Street of Homicide. The trail leads to international arms-smugglers, shady bankers, mute midgets, and tea-sipping Tong leaders, any of whom may have done in the princess. When a common close friend is murdered while investigating smuggling on the San Francisco waterfront, private detective James Lee Wong, crime-beat reporter Bobbie Logan, and Captain Street of Homicide devote all their skills to finding the killer.

Their respective investigations zero in on a failing retailer of imitation Chinese antiques, a waterfront nightclub being run by a shady gambler, and the obscure connections that exist between them. When more bodies start to pile up, Wong must solve the case, or become a victim himself. But how can he hope to catch a killer who can commit murder within Street's own squad room?

When shipping magnate Cyrus Wentworth is murdered, Captain Street immediately arrests the only possible suspect: Customers who bought this item also bought. Page 1 of 1 Start over Page 1 of 1. All Regions Number of discs: Share your thoughts with other customers. Write a customer review. Showing of 2 reviews. Top Reviews Most recent Top Reviews. There was a problem filtering reviews right now.

Please try again later. This collection has a healthy dose of Dragnet, Martin Kane and others. There is a lot of television on these DVDs, and more than once I've decided to do a TV detective marathon but couldn't make it through more than 3 or 4 before I just got worn out with the bad audio and video quality.

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These aren't restored - that's why they're inexpensive. I will say I watch black and white 30ss movies all the time, so it's not the black and white or any of that, it's just that they aren't restored. Overall, I'm glad I bought them and it's fun to pop one in occasionally. There's a problem loading this menu right now. Learn more about Amazon Prime. Get fast, free shipping with Amazon Prime.