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crime fiction from Poe up to 1950
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| Rivals of Sherlock Holmes on DVD |
[21 Nov 2009|10:43pm] |
I didn't realise that the superb Rivals of Sherlock Holmes series had been released on DVD, in Region 2. Like most Region 2 releases it's rather overpriced but it's a great series. Season 1 is out now and season 2 is to follow. It's years since I've seen this one but I remember it as being very very good.
Based on stories by some of the best crime writers who were contemporaries of Conan Doyle - there were so many superb Victorian and Edwardian detective fiction writers who are now sadly all but forgotten.
The paperback anthologies the series was based on, edited by Hugh Greene (Graham Greene's brother), are relatively easy to find and I highly recommend both the TV series and the books.
x-posted to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) cult_tv_lounge
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| non-American hardboiled crime classics |
[19 Nov 2009|07:24pm] |
I asked a while back for your five favourite American noir or hardboiled crime stories. Are there any great non-American hardboiled crime stories?
I suppose some of Graham Greene’s work might qualify.
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| a new Sherlock Holmes community |
[14 Nov 2009|08:00pm] |
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thereadcircle is a community where fans new and old can come join in monthly read- and/or watch-alongs for the Sherlock Holmes stories. Every month one or more of the Sherlock Holmes stories will be picked from the canon for the members to read and discuss, fan over, create things for, ect. There will also be a separate but parallel watch-along of the Granada production series of Sherlock Holmes.
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| Bonnie and Clyde |
[09 Nov 2009|11:30pm] |
Edward Anderson's superb 1937 novel Thieves Like Us was based (albeit very loosely) on the real-life story of Bonnie and Clyde. I'm sure those famous outlaws must have been the subject of other noir crime novels, but offhand I can't think of any. Does anyone know of any other vintage crime dealing with Bonnie and Clyde?
Or dealing with other life-life outlaw and gangsters, such as Dillinger?
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| five Golden Age favourites |
[04 Nov 2009|05:38pm] |
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It's much too quiet here. So I'm going to annoy you with list-making, because everybody loves lists. So list #1 is - what are your five favourite British Golden Age detective stories and novels, and why?
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| the anti-hero in vintage crime |
[19 Oct 2009|02:04pm] |
The anti-hero has become an established part of modern crime fiction. Apart from a couple of Dashiell Hammett's protagonists I can't think of too many examples from vintage crime.
Are there any great anti-heroes to be found in the pages of vintage crime fiction?
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| spy novels and crime |
[09 Oct 2009|08:00am] |
The discussion on spy novels in the list of Top 100 Crime Novels raises a worthwhile point. Are espionage novels and crime novels two separate genres or one? They're clearly related, but are they different enough in tone and structure to be different genres?
Do people who read mysteries and detective fiction mostly read spy fiction as well? There'd be a crossover certainly.
I suspect that the two forms have moved further apart in the last half century. Sherlock Holmes and some of his contemporary fictional detectives investigated cases that involved espionage. In the 30s Nicholas Blake wrote mostly straight crime but threw in the occasional political thriller, with the same hero as his straight detective novels. And in movies Hitchcock moved back and forward between crime thrillers and spy thrillers. I don't think most modern fictional detectives would be likely to be involved in investigations of espionage.
So how many people here read vintage spy fiction as well as vintage crime?
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| vintage crime comics |
[08 Oct 2009|05:11pm] |
One area of the crime fiction of the past that we've never talked about here is crime comics. Has anyone read any of these?
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| crime fiction's disreputable image |
[05 Oct 2009|09:39am] |
A recent discussion with my flatmate made me aware of the extent to which crime fiction is still regarded in some quarters as being rather disreputable.
In recent years Chandler and Hammett have gained a certain amount of respectability among academics, but very few other writers from the golden age of detective fiction seem to have made the leap to academic acceptability.
Or am I simply out of touch? Are any other vintage crime writers now taken seriously by literary critics and academics?
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| Victorian Studies in Scarlet, by Richard B. Altick |
[22 Sep 2009|09:24pm] |
Richard B. Altick’s Victorian Studies in Scarlet was recommended to me recently by someone on LJ, and it’s a fascinating read. Altick examines some of the most celebrated real life murder cases of the Victorian era, but more interesting than these accounts are his chapters on the Victorian passion, which could almost be described as a mania, for true crime (which we talked about here not long ago).
( more behind cut )
x-posted to strange_tears
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| Victorian sensation novels |
[21 Sep 2009|07:31pm] |
The "sensation novels" that achieved immense popularity in Britain in the 1860s were important predecessors of the modern crime novel. Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret and the novels of Wilkie Collins are probably the best known examples of this genre today.
Another very successful practitioner of this form was Charles Reade. I haven't read any of his work. Has anyone read him? Do you recommend him?
Ellen Wood's East Lynne was another highly popular sensation novel which I also haven't read. Anyone read that one?
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| Dickens before Poe? |
[03 Sep 2009|02:59am] |
Is there any thought to the concept of Dickens over Poe as the progenitor of the modern crime story?
Bleak House, for instance, really looks at the social hierarchy issues of the detective.
Recently, for example, I was looking over here for the comments on Dickens versus Poe - the influences, of course, that all interconnect for that time period.
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| Wilkie Collins, The Haunted Hotel |
[30 Aug 2009|11:33pm] |
Such fame as Wilkie Collins enjoys today rests mostly on two books, The Woman in White (1859) and The Moonstone (1868). these sensation novels were immensely popular and were also an important stage in the development of modern crime fiction. His later works were less commercially successful and are much less highly thought of today, but The Haunted Hotel (published in 1878) is both surprisingly interesting and highly enjoyable.
( more behind cut )
x-posted to darkling_tales
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| A Most Mysterious Murder |
[29 Aug 2009|02:45am] |
Julian Fellowes Investigates: A Most Mysterious Murder, made for the BBC and screened in 2005, presents dramatised accounts of five unsolved British murders, dating from the mid-19th to the mid-20th centuries. So far I've only had the chance to watch one episode, The Case of the Croydon Poisonings, but it seems moderately promising. It has the look you expect from a British period TV series. And it's an interesting look at true crime stories from the past.
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| vintage crime sites and blogs |
[23 Aug 2009|06:02pm] |
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Where else do go for vintage crime discussions? Or news of the latest re-releases of classic crime novels? Are there any particularly good vintage crime websites? Or blogs? Email lists? Anything?
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| the 19th century enthusiasm for true crime |
[18 Aug 2009|09:43pm] |
Walter Kendrick’s The Thrill of Fear: 250 Years of Scary Entertainments deals mostly with horror, but he also discusses crime fiction. I was particularly interested in the chapter on the 19th century enthusiasm for true crime stories, often extremely grisly ones. And they were apparently as popular with the educated classes as they were with the masses. One broadsheet on the subject of a particularly gruesome murder sold well over a million and a half copies.
19th century true crime came mostly in the form of broadsheets, pamphlets and magazines, rather than books.
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