If someone had asked me a month ago to give an extemporaneous talk about the history of detective stories in the United States, I would have begun with Poe in the 1840s (Rue Morgue, Marie Roget, Purloined Letter), then switched to the other side of the pond for Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone (1860s) and Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes tales (1880s), before returning to the United States in the 1920s for noir and pulp fiction.
What this book taught me is that there was an enormous production of mystery writing in the United States well before Sherlock Holmes became popular. The reason we are unfamiliar with it is that most of these publications were in American newspapers and magazines, and thus not codified into novels. The editors of this anthology have combed through archives of American periodicals to tabulate and organize a surprising trove of material.
The several dozen stories are each brief (about 5-8 pages), as befits their original publication formats, and the content is occasionally rudimentary because this was a newly-emerging genre. Policemen and detectives apply amazing modern technology (fingerprints), but also nonsensical ones (retrieving the image of a murderer from the retina of the victim). A mysterious locked-room mystery is solved when someone notices a skylight. And the malefactors when confronted with the exposure of their crime typically confess, and sometimes commit suicide in remorse for their wicked deed.
The strength of the book is in the 20+ page introduction and in the intros to the various subsections. I was surprised to learn how much I didn't know, and for that I am grateful. For modern readers who want fascinating stories, I would suggest sticking with modern authors, but for the detective story enthusiast or scholar, this is a worthwhile read.
Early American Detective Stories: An Anthology (McFarland, 2008)
The reason we are unfamiliar with it is that most of these publications were in American newspapers and magazines, and thus not codified into novels.
ReplyDeleteWasn't Sherlock Holmes also published first in a periodical that it self-referenced?
As were, if I might add, much of what is now considered classic French literature. Alexandre Dumas had a whole studio cranking out the sequels to the Three Musketeers for publication. At times, the studios fell behind a bit and the story got wobbly to catch back up. I think Les Mis was published as a serial at first as well.
Books were expensive, but without radio and tv, people did need entertainment. Periodicals provided that.
In short: These were all written soap operas.