Detectives in Fiction
Detectives in Fiction is an article published in the Weekly Dispatch on 30 may 1909.
Detectives in Fiction
The Most Popular Character with both Authors and Public.
Despite the fickleness of the public taste in the matter of fiction there is one type of story which is still eagerly devoured by all classes of the community, old and young, literary and unliterary alike. That is the detective story, the place of which in the realm of popular literature is unique. It appeals to all. The fastidious man, whose sense of proportion is outraged by the improbabilities of the ordinary "shocker," pays ungrudging homage to the merits of good detective stories; the less critical reader is fascinated and enthralled. It is interesting to set forth the particular features in this class of literature which enable it to win general approbation in a way no other fiction can. Consider the hero. What man-mer of man is he, and in what array of circumstances does he perform? The detectives in a story is usually a picturesque individual, romantic even, by reason of the war he wages against the sinister elements of humanity. Crime is always a fascinating study in all its aspects, and when represented in stern and relentless conflict with justice and retribution (symbolised by the detective) it becomes doubly engrossing.
The detective in fiction too is generally credited with some little human foible or eccentricity which serves admirably as a set-off to his superhuman powers of analysis, intuition, and deduction, and makes him less a being of a different sphere. Take Sherlock Holmes, for instance. playing the violin execrably in his rooms in Baker-street, and Arthur Dupin, of "Rue Morgue" fame, punctiliously engaged in dotting his "i's." Then, of course, for the reader there is the fascination of being present at the unravelling of a mystery, of watching a master mind at work picking out the threads in a tangled skein, and deducing circumstances from the vaguest clues. All these features combined give the detective story its enormous grip upon the emotions. It is practically the only type of story that can safely, be reckoned to command success without a love interest. This element, so essential a part of the average novel, help takes secondary place. The human interest is of other sorts.
Detectives' Peculiarities.
Equally interesting is the study of the rise of the detective story. It is one of the most youthful forms of successful fiction and hardly dates back beyond 1840. About that time Edgar Allan Poe, the short-lived, ill-fated genius of America, wrote three wonderful detective stories, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," "The Mystery of Marie Roget," and "The Purloined Letter." They were comparatively short in length, but it was with them that the foundations of the detective story were securely laid. Poe's three stories created a literary sensation. They were not read so much as devoured. The writer's wonderful imaginative and analytical faculties found full play in an ideal medium, and the result was enthralling. Everybody, critics and public alike, were unanimous in praise of that wonderful detective creation, M. Dupin, and his extraordinary powers. Strangely enough, although Poe must have realised his ability in this direction, he wrote no more detective stories. Others reaped where he had sown. There is not a single writer of detective stories since Poe who does not owe an incalculable debt to the author who opened up a new field of fiction and left behind him a harvest for fellow novelists. After Poe came the Frenchman, Emile Gaboriau. It is noteworthy that the detective story has always met with a warm welcome in France. Gaboriau was born just about the time Poe was writing "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." The Frenchman, who followed his master closely, leaped into fame at one bound with "The Lerouge Affair," and afterwards wrote a score of fascinating stories chiefly concerned with the exploits of a famous detective, M. Lecoq. When Gaboriau died the detective story waned, not because there was no public for it, but because of the difficulty of finding anyone who could adequately fill the place left vacant by the deaths of its two great exponents. It was not until the nineties et the last century that it was resucitated in all its former glory by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who, in "A Study in Scarlet," introduced to a delighted world the greatest detective in fiction, "Sherlock Holmes."
Thera is little need here to expatiate upon the vogue of this celebrated creation. Let it suffice to say that the name "Sherlock Holmes" has passed into the English language as a synonym for the zenith of the analytical faculty in man, and that most of us are acquainted with the spare figure, lean face, and tweed cap of the Baker-street wizard. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's detective was succeeded recently by M. Gaston Leroux's creation, who has achieved enormous celebrity by his amazing exploits in that world-famous book, "The Mystery of the Yellow Room." The hero in this case is Joseph Rouletabille, a young reporter with a marvellous gift of deduction and intuition — a born detective, in fact, with the imagination of a poet. It is evidence of the abounding popularity of detective stories that "The Mystery of the Yellow Room" has been translated into almost every civilised language, and that millions of readers of all nations have followed the marvellous detectives progress from clue to clue with an admiration approaching awe.
Among the younger writers of detective fiction Mr. J. Harris-Burland stands out in a class by himself. Those who read his "Mystery of the Black Motor-car" and "Workers in Darkness," know that in his hands the mystery story is found at its best. Mr. Burland's latest detective story is called "The Torhaven Mystery," and the opening chapters will be introduced to our readers in the serial columns of The Weekly Dispatch on Sunday, June 6. It will be found that Mr. Burland's detective hero is quite a new type. He is an amateur criminologist, Sir James Redrice, and the mystery that he sets himself to unravel leads to an astounding situation. The novel is unique in that interwoven with its detective interest in a charming love story which considerably add, to the power of the dramatic situations as they unfold themselves one by one to the reader.
