detective story summary

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Below is the article summary. For the full article, see detective story.

detective story, Type of popular literature dealing with the step-by-step investigation and solution of a crime, usually murder. The first detective story was Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841). The genre soon expanded to novel length. Sherlock Holmes, the first fictional detective to become a household name, first appeared in Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet (1887). The 1930s was the golden age of the detective novel, exemplified by the books of Dashiell Hammett. The introduction of mass-produced paperback books in the late 1930s made detective stories readily accessible to a wide public, and well-known fictional detectives were created by G.K. Chesterton, Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Raymond Chandler, Mickey Spillane, and Georges Simenon. Among present-day mystery writers P.D. James and Dick Francis rank high.

Jorge Luis Borges Summary

Jorge Luis Borges Argentine poet, essayist, and short-story writer whose works became classics of 20th-century world literature. Borges was reared in the then-shabby Palermo district of Buenos Aires, the setting of some of his works. His family, which had been notable in Argentine history, included

Arthur Conan Doyle Summary

Arthur Conan Doyle was a Scottish writer best known for his creation of the detective Sherlock Holmes—one of the most vivid and enduring characters in English fiction. Conan Doyle, the second of Charles Altamont and Mary Foley Doyle’s 10 children, began seven years of Jesuit education in

Edgar Allan Poe Summary

Edgar Allan Poe was an American short-story writer, poet, critic, and editor who is famous for his cultivation of mystery and the macabre. His tale “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841) initiated the modern detective story, and the atmosphere in his tales of horror is unrivaled in American