|
Search over 100 encyclopedias and dictionaries: |
Research categories | Follow us on Twitter |
Research categories
View all topics in the newsView all reference sources at Encyclopedia.com |
|||
Detective Story
Detective Story, form of fiction whose main structural characteristic is a reversal of the sequence of events: the catastrophe, generally a murder, is typically presented first, followed by the introduction of suspected criminals and of a series of clues whose significance the reader is not supposed to grasp until the story is ended by a climax of explanation, in which the detective hero shows how the crime was committed, the motives for it, and finally the identity of the criminal. Poe's “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”, “The Purloined Letter” and “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt” are considered the first modern detective stories. In them there appears the prototype of fictional detectives, C. Auguste Dupin, an intellectual amateur who demonstrates an astounding ability to solve crimes by analyzing clues unobserved or misinterpreted by the police and his simple friend, the narrator of the tale. Some dime novels featured detectives like Nick Carter, but the detective novel did not become widely popular until the work of such foreign authors as Gaboriau, Wilkie Collins, and Conan Doyle was published in the U.S. The first full‐length detective novels of the U.S. of importance were those of Anna Katharine Green, the most popular being The Leavenworth Case (1878). The vogue of detective fiction has become tremendous in the 20th century.
|
|
|
Cite this article
James D. Hart and and Phillip W. Leininger. "Detective Story." The Oxford Companion to American Literature. 1995. Encyclopedia.com. 30 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. James D. Hart and and Phillip W. Leininger. "Detective Story." The Oxford Companion to American Literature. 1995. Encyclopedia.com. (May 30, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O123-DetectiveStory.html James D. Hart and and Phillip W. Leininger. "Detective Story." The Oxford Companion to American Literature. 1995. Retrieved May 30, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O123-DetectiveStory.html |
|
Detective Story
Detective Story (1949), a melodrama by Sidney Kingsley. [Hudson Theatre, 581 perf.] Detective McLeod ( Ralph Bellamy) of the 21st Precinct, New York, is a fanatically committed policeman whose ideas of justice and law are in some ways as warped as those of the hoodlums with whom he deals. McLeod believes that suspects are guilty until proven innocent, and even when they are acquitted in the courts insists, “There's a higher court,” and, by implication, that he is it. He is not above brutally treating suspects such as Dr. Kurt Schneider ( Harry Worth), a suspected abortionist. But when he learns that his wife, Mary ( Meg Mundy), once had an abortion and that Schneider performed it, his world collapses. He walks into a suspect's gun, and the man shoots him dead. Although the main story was well written and its principal figures perceptively drawn, much of the strength of the Howard Lindsay–Russel Crouse production came in its vignettes of minor figures: burglars, shoplifters, shady lawyers, and policemen. Burns Mantle, who had been a police reporter early in his career, observed that the “melodrama possesses so much naturalism and realism, and performs so easily, that a careless onlooker might use a film term and call it a documentary.”
|
|
|
Cite this article
Gerald Bordman and Thomas S. Hischak. "Detective Story." The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 30 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. Gerald Bordman and Thomas S. Hischak. "Detective Story." The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. (May 30, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O149-DetectiveStory.html Gerald Bordman and Thomas S. Hischak. "Detective Story." The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 2004. Retrieved May 30, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O149-DetectiveStory.html |
|
detective story
detective story see mystery . |
|
|
Cite this article
"detective story." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Encyclopedia.com. 30 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "detective story." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Encyclopedia.com. (May 30, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-X-detectiv.html "detective story." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Retrieved May 30, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-X-detectiv.html |
|
Search over 100 encyclopedias and dictionaries:
HighBeam™ Research, Inc. © Copyright 2012. All rights reserved.
The Encyclopedia.com advertising network includes:
