Race, Gender and Empire in American Detective Fiction

Gruesser, John Cullen

McFarland & Co Inc（2013/09発売）

• 製本 Paperback:紙装版/ペーパーバック版／ページ数 216 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9780786465361
• DDC分類 813.087209

Full Description

This book highlights detection's malleability by analyzing the works of particular groups of authors from specific time periods written in response to other texts.

It traces the roles that gender, race and empire have played in American detective fiction from Edgar Allan Poe's works through the myriad variations upon them published before 1920 to hard-boiled fiction (the origins of which derive in part from turn-of-the-20th-century notions about gender, race and nationality), and it concludes with a discussion of contemporary mystery series with inner-city settings that address black male and female heroism.

Contents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface

Introduction: Manipulation, Malleability and Metafiction in American Detection

One • "Having defeated him in his own castle": Character Rivalry, Authorial Sleight of Hand and Generic Fluidity in Edgar Allan Poe's Dupin Tales

Two • Expanding on Poe: Varieties of Detection in Key American Literary Texts, 1850-1882

Three • Subverting and Re-Entrenching Traditional Gender Roles: Female Sleuths, Dangerous Women and the Imperial Origins of Hard-Boiled Fiction

Four • Detecting Empire Abroad and at Home: Interrogations of United States Overseas Expansion and Jim Crow in Early African American Detective Writing

Coda: Black Freedom, Mythic ­Heroism and Hard-Boiled Motherhood in Contemporary American Detective Fiction

Appendix: Interviews with Valerie Wilson Wesley (May 2003, January and February 2013)

Chapter Notes

Works Cited

Index