Victorian Detective Stories: An Oxford Anthology

By Michael Cox

Book Overview

The Victorian era saw the first great flowering of the detective story. Edgar Allen Poe, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Arthur Conan Doyle, J.S. Le Fanu, and a host of others pioneered a genre of fiction that remains among the most popular today. Now, in Victorian Tales of Mystery and Detection, Michael Cox provides a sampling of the finest detective stories written from the 1840s to the early twentieth century.
Here readers will find tales displaying a vast array of detectives and villains--and a multitude of murder methods and motives--all chronologically arranged so that readers can follow the genre as it develops over time. For instance, in Conan Doyle's "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" we see an example of the many Sherlock Holmes escapades that popularized and came to typify the detective story for the Victorian public. And in the progression of the stories, we witness the evolution of the investigator from Poe's brilliant and eccentric Chevalier C. August Dupin, to Doyle's scientific Sherlock Holmes, into Robert Barr's cavalier Valmont (a possible model for Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot).
Including well-known stories by famous authors, as well as little known gems reprinted for the first time, this book offers hours of enjoyment and escape for all lovers of crime fiction.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 019283150X
• ISBN13: 9780192831507
• Release Date: November 1993
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 606 Pages
• Weight: 0.92 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.8" x 1.3" x 5.1"

Customer Reviews

a fascinating collection of mysteries

So fascinating a collection that I ordered it twice for the pleasure of having it in two formats. Too bad it is not always available or easily available as a new item. A must have for lovers of the genre and novices alike. Excellent intoductory section. Highly recommended.

Very enjoyable and worth every penny.

If you like a good, old-fashioned mystery, this is the book for you. I expected that I would have read most of these, but I was surprised to find many unfamiliar stories, along with a few familiar (but very good) ones. I was sorry to come to the end.