Imagination of Evil

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Imagination of Evil

Detective Fiction and the Modern World

Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000 Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers

Author: Mary Evans

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Collection: Continuum Literary Studies

Language: English

Published by: Continuum

Published on: 27th October 2011

Format: LCP-protected ePub

Size: 208 pages

ISBN: 9781441169488


Introduction

From its growth in Europe in the nineteenth century, detective fiction has developed into one of the most popular genres of literature and popular culture more widely.

About the Monograph

In this monograph, Mary Evans examines detective fiction and its complex relationship to the modern and to modernity. She focuses on two key themes: the moral relationship of detection (and the detective) to a particular social world and the attempt to restore and even improve the social world that has been threatened and fractured by a crime, usually that of murder.

Characteristics of Detective Fiction

It is a characteristic of much detective fiction that the detective, the pursuer, is a social outsider: this status creates a complex web of relationships between detective, institutional life and dominant and subversive moralities. Evans questions who and what the detective stands for and suggests that the answer challenges many of our assumptions about the relationship between various moralities in the modern world.

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