Detective fiction and the rise of forensic science

Resource Information

The work Detective fiction and the rise of forensic science represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in University of Missouri Libraries. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Detective fiction and the rise of forensic science

Statement of responsibility

Ronald R. Thomas

Creator

• Thomas, Ronald R., 1949-

Subject

• Detective and mystery stories, American -- History and criticism
• Detective and mystery stories, English -- History and criticism
• Forensic sciences -- History
• History
• Literature and science -- English-speaking countries
• Literature and science -- Great Britain -- History
• Literature and science -- United States -- History
• Popular literature -- English-speaking countries -- History and criticism
• Criticism, interpretation, etc

Genre

• History
• Criticism, interpretation, etc

Language

eng

Summary

• "This is the first book about the relationship between the development of forensic science in the nineteenth century and the invention of the new literary genre of detective fiction in Britain and America. Ronald R. Thomas examines the criminal body as a site of interpretation and enforcement in a wide range of fictional examples, from Poe, Dickens and Hawthorne through Twain and Conan Doyle to Hammett, Chandler and Christie. He is especially concerned with the authority the literary detective manages to secure through the "devices"--Fingerprinting, photography, lie detectors - with which he discovers the truth and establishes his expertise, and the way in which those devices relate to broader questions of cultural authority at decisive moments in the history of the genre. This is an interdisciplinary project, framing readings of literary texts with an analysis of contemporaneous developments in criminology, the rules of evidence, and modern scientific accounts of identity."--Jacket
• "This is the first book about the relationship between the development of forensic science in the nineteenth century and the invention of the new literary genre of detective fiction in Britain and America. Ronald R. Thomas examines the criminal body as a site of interpretation and enforcement in a wide range of fictional examples, from Poe, Dickens and Hawthorne through Twain and Conan Doyle to Hammett, Chandler and Christie. He is especially concerned with the authority the literary detective manages to secure through the "devices" - fingerprinting, photography, lie detectors - with which he discovers the truth and establishes his expertise, and the way in which those devices relate to broader questions of cultural authority at decisive moments in the history of the genre. This is an interdisciplinary project, framing readings of literary texts with an analysis of contemporaneous developments in criminology, the rules of evidence, and modern scientific accounts of identity."--BOOK JACKET

Member of

• Cambridge studies in nineteenth-century literature and culture, 26

Cataloging source

DLC

Dewey number

823/.087209

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

index present

LC call number

PR830.D4

LC item number

T53 1999

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography

Series statement

Cambridge studies in nineteenth-century literature and culture

Series volume

26