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The detective story is the normal recreation of noble
minds,—PHILIP GUEDALLA
My theory is that people who don't like mystery stories are
anarchists.—REX STOUT
WHEN Nazi Luftwaffe squadrons unleashed their
wanton fury on London in the late summer of 1940, initiating to their
own consternation a deathless epic of human courage and resistance, they
also drove a city of eight million souls beneath the earth's surface for
nightly refuge. After the first shock of a kind of battle new in the
annals of warfare had passed, life underground began to take on some ,of
the aspects of normality. One of the earliest harbingers of
rehabilitation was the appearance of books in the fetid burrows while
the bombs rained overhead. What volumes, asked curious Americans from
the comfortable security of their homes, could men and women choose for
their companionship at such a time? The answer was soon forthcoming in
dispatches' from the beleaguered capital, telling of newly formed "raid"
libraries set up in response to popular demand to lend detective stories
and nothing else. The implications contained in this circumstance, as
applied to the underlying appeal of the detective novel, might easily
constitute a superior essay in themselves (and are perhaps unfathomable
at that). But surely no more striking illustration could be found of the
vital position which this form of literature has come to occupy in
modern civilized existence, for whatever reasons.
That detective stories are a mere hundred years old seems, in fact,
beyond belief; in the same sense that imagining daily life without the
telephone or the radio strains all credulity. For to-day it is a matter
of sober statistical record that one out of every four new works of
fiction published in the English language belongs to this category,
while the devotion the form has managed to arouse in millions of men and
women in all walks of life, the humble and the eminent, has become a
latter-day legend.
No less a qualified authority than Mr. Somerset Maugham has recently
ascribed this state of affairs to the fact that "the serious novel of
to-day Is regrettably namby-pamby." The charge is outside the province
of the present volume and can not be examined here. But Mr. Maugham goes
on, at least half seriously, to predict the day when the police novel
will be studied in the colleges, when aspirants for doctoral degrees
will shuttle the oceans and haunt the world's great libraries to conduct
personal research expeditions into the lives and sources of the masters
of the art.
Whatever the merits or likelihood of these suggestions, the surprising
circumstance is that no adequate factual or analytical history of this
movement—so clearly the outstanding literary phenomenon of modern
times—yet exists. There have been, of course, the excellent but brief
critical studies by Dorothy Sayers, Willard Huntington Wright, and E. M.
Wrong; and the longer but relatively inaccessible (and, it must be said,
rather academic)
treatises of H. Douglas Thomson, Regis Messac, and Francois Fosca, the
first published only in England and now out of print, and the latter two
available only in French. These, together with a handful of prefaces,
and a larger but widely scattered and uncoordinated body of magazine
articles, and one or two "how-to-write-it" manuals, constitute the
entire published literature on one of the most vigorous and virile types
of all contemporary writing. A form which, to many readers, has come to
occupy the solacing spot which Robinson Crusoe held in Gabriel
Betteredge's affections: a "friend in need in all the necessities of
this mortal life"—the one dependable and unfailing anodyne in a world so
realistically murderous that fictive murder becomes refuge and retreat!
. . . The present book has been undertaken in the hope of at least
partially remedying this deficiency: of providing a reasonably readable
and useful outline of the main progress of the detective story from
Edgar Allan Poe to the present moment.
Throughout the book, the reader will find, emphasis has been placed on
the actual and factual rather than the theoretical phases of the
subject; with side excursions, when space has permitted, into those
fascinating if trivial problems of idiosyncrasy and mannerism so dear to
the heart of the true enthusiast. In short, the underlying object of the
work has been pleasure—for reader and writer alike.
In making any such book, the problem of exclusion must be, necessarily,
more difficult than that of inclusion. The question of just what
constitutes a detective story will be considered at some length in the
body of the work. For the present we can do no better than repeat again
John Carter's useful and often quoted dictum, as the basis upon which
authors and their various works were accepted or rejected: "If we
decide, as surely we must, that a detective story within the meaning of
the act must be mainly occupied with detection and must contain a proper
detective (whether amateur or professional), it is clear that mystery
stories, crime stories, spy stories, even Secret Service stories, will
have to be excluded unless any particular example can show some
authentic detective strain." *
Thus, the volume in hand has been restricted to the bona-fide, the
"pure," detective story and its craftsmen —as distinguished (to quote
Carter again) from "mere mystery on the one hand, and criminology on the
other." Regrettably, it has been impossible to discuss at length all the
competent authors who come legitimately under even this rule. Their
number has become so increasingly great within recent decades that only
a veritable encyclopedia could deal with them adequately. Too, this
volume is of necessity concerned less with literary merit per se than
with setting forth the history and evolution of detective fiction as a
recognizable form. This has made the basis of choice chiefly historical
rather than appreciative. Hence, detailed discussion has been limited to
those practitioners whose works, in the writer's opinion, have most
significantly influenced the progress of the police romance throughout
the years, either in technique or in popularity. The premise has
sometimes meant the inclusion of authors of no very great distinction in
themselves, and the omission of others (including many personal
favorites) whose achievements, judged by purely literary standards,
might be considered of a higher order. Nevertheless, the attempt has
been made to recognize if only in the several lists and indexes most of
the authors who have contributed ably and consistently to the form.
In addition to these general premises, a few personal observations may,
perhaps, be permitted. It has not been my wish in undertaking this work
to set myself up in any sense as an "authority" on the subject of the
detective story. Naturally, I own to a strong bias in favor of the
police novel among the several forms of recreational and pleasure
literature—else I should not have attempted this labor of devotion at
all. But I have tried to approach the subject in the spirit of the
average friendly reader, and, so far as possible, to synthesize and
express that hypothetical individual's opinions and reactions, likes and
dislikes, rather than those of professional or formal criticism. If I
have succeeded in doing this in any degree, I shall perforce be
satisfied.
I should not be honest, however, if I did not confess to certain
preferences and antipathies which other readers may or may not share.
Some of these predilections and aversions are admittedly of little save
personal importance, and have been treated accordingly. But, while I
have tried to be fair at all times, I have not spared the horses when
discussing any tendencies which seem to me really dangerous to the
future welfare of my favorite form of reading and that of several
million equally fortunate individuals. On the opposite side, I have
conscientiously attempted to avoid over-solemnity about the subject, but
have endeavored at all times to consider it only for what it is—a
frankly non-serious, entertainment
form of literature which, nevertheless, possesses its own rules and
standards, its good and bad examples, and at its best has won the right
to respectful consideration on its own merits. (But I venture to believe
that the demonstrable relationship between the detective story and
democratic institutions, discussed in one of the chapters, is not
without some serious implication in the present day.)
Acknowledgment is hereby gladly, if of necessity anonymously, expressed
to a long list of individuals and corporations who have assisted
invaluably by one means or another in the preparation of this book: the
personal friends who have listened so patiently and contributed so many
helpful suggestions, and the friendly and equally helpful correspondents
among authors, editors, and publishers; more specifically, to the
magazines in which some of the material has appeared prior to book
publication, including the Saturday Review of Literature, the
London .Spectator, American Cavalcade, and the
Wilson Library Bulletin.
In conclusion, it is perhaps unnecessary to say that every effort has
been made to achieve completeness and accuracy within the bounds laid
down. But it is inescapable that in any work exploring a comparatively
uncharted field and involving so much detail, some errors and omissions
at least will have occurred. Some of the interpretations, too, while
made with every intention of objective fairness, may be open to
question. I shall welcome correspondence from interested readers on any
such points, for correction or modification in possible future editions.
Introduction
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