THEORY AND PRACTICE OF CLASSIC DETECTIVE FICTION

THEORY AND PRACTICE

OF CLASSIC

DETECTIVE FICTION

Edited by

JEROME H. DELAMATER

AND RUTH PRIGOZY

Prepared under the auspices ofHofstra University

Contributions to the Study of Popular Culture,

Number 62

GREENWOOD PRESS

Westport, Connecticut ? London

Contents

Preface

xiii

Acknowledgments

xv

I.

Theoretical Approaches to the Genre

l

1.

Canonization, Modern Literature,

and the Detective Story

John G. Cawelti

5

2.

Shamus-a-um: Having the Quality

of a Classical Detective

Timothy W. Boyd and

Carolyn Higbie

17

\3.

An Ideal Helpmate: The Detective

Character as (Fictional)

Object and Ideal Imago

Timothy R. Prchal

29 V

4.

The Politics of Secrecy and

Publicity: The Functions of

Hidden Stories in Some Recent

British Mystery Fiction

Peter HUhn

5.

Not So Much "Whodunnit" as

"Whoizzit": Margaret Millar's

Command of a Metonymic Sub-Genre

Ann Thompson and John O. Thompson

-

39

51

x

Contents

6.

Parody and Detective Fiction

Janice MacDonald

61

7.

"The Game's Afoot": Predecessors and

Pursuits of a Postmodern Detective Novel

Kathleen Belin Owen

73

II. Agatha Christie and British Detective Fiction

8.

Christie's Narrative Games

Robert Merrill

9.

"It Was the Mark of Cain": Agatha

Christie and the Murder of the Mystery

Robin Woods

85

87

103

10. Impossible Murderers: Agatha Christie

and the Community of Readers

Ina Roe Hark

111

11.

"The Daughters of His Manhood":

Christie and the Golden Age of

Detective Fiction

Mary Anne Ackershoek

119

12.

"I am Duchess of Malfi still":

The Identity-Death Nexus in

The Duchess of Malfi and

The Skull beneath the Skin

Carolyn F. Scott

129

13.

"An Unsuitable Job" for Anyone:

The "Filthy Trade" in P. D. James

Mamie Jones and Barbara Barker

137

14. Between Men: How Ruth Rendell

Reads for Gender

Martha Stoddard Holmes

149

15. Class, Gender, and the Possibilities

of Detection in Anne Perry's Victorian

Reconstructions

Iska S. Alter

159

Contents

xi

16. A Suitable Job for a Woman:

Sexuality, Motherhood, and

Professionalism in Gaudy Night

Jasmine Y. Hall

169

17. The Bureaucrat as Reader:

The Detective Novel in the

Context of Middle-Class Culture

James E. Bartell

177^

Index

193

About the Editors and Contributors

199

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