Victorian Detectives in Contemporary Culture

Introduction

In contrast to the main body of current Victorian detective criticism, which tends to concentrate on Conan Doyle’s creation and only uses other detectives as a backdrop, the texts gathered in this volume examine various contemporary ways of (re)presenting real and fictional detectives that originated in or are otherwise associated with that era: Inspector Bucket, Sergeant Cuff, Inspector Reid, Tobias Gregson, Flaxman Low, and psychiatrists as detectives. Such a collection allows for a critical re-assessment of both the detectives’ importance to the Victorian literature and culture and provides a better basis for understanding the reasons behind their contemporary returns, re-imaginings and re-creations, contributing to the creation of a base for further cultural and critical works dealing with reworkings of the Victorian era.