Detective Fiction and the Rise of Forensic Science

By Ronald R. Thomas

Book Overview

This is the first book about the relationship between the development of forensic science in the nineteenth century and the new literary genre of detective fiction in Britain and America--from Poe, Dickens and Hawthorne through Twain and Conan Doyle to Hammett, Chandler and Christie. Ronald R. Thomas is especially concerned with the authority the literary detective manages to secure through the devices--fingerprinting, photography, lie detectors--and the way in which those devices relate to broader questions of cultural authority at decisive moments in the history of the genre.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521527627
• ISBN13: 9780521527620
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 364 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 9.1"