从爱伦•坡到阿加莎•克里斯蒂的作品看西方侦探小说的魅力与发展

The Charm and Development of Western Detective Fiction from the Works of

Edgar Allan Poe to Agatha Christie

By Yao Zhongqin

In partial fulfillment of the requirement

For the B. A. degree

Department of English

School of Languages and Cultures

Nanjing University of Information Science amp; Technology

June, 2016

Acknowledgments

Writing the thesis would always be a meaningful and thought-provoking experience for me. And it could not have been possible to complete it if it were not for those people who never hesitate to offer help.

I am so grateful for everyone’s help during the process of writing my thesis and they come to my aid practically and psychologically. I have to take the chance to express my sincere gratitude to them. Firstly the thank-you goes to my supervisor Professor Zhao Yamin for her consistent feedback and guidance, insightful suggestions. I appreciate it that she has taken trouble to revise my thesis, which helps a lot to perfect it.

I am also indebted to all the teachers in English Department for their constant encouragement and support. Without their help, the thesis could not have been completed smoothly.

Last but not least, I love my beloved parents, who are always ready for helping me out.

Contents

1. Introduction 2

2. How detective fiction made its debut 3

2.1 The budding of detective fiction 3

2.2 The genesis of detective fiction 4

2.2.1 Indispensable mystery elements 4

2.2.2 The one who really achieved one 5

3. How detective fiction made a hit 5

3.1 The most renowned sleuth 5

3.2 The emerging of power of logic 6

4. How the detective fiction entered into Golden Age 7

4.1 The most prolific detective writer 7

4.2 The plotting strategy she used 8

4.2.1 The cunning blockers 9

4.2.2 The locked room murder 10

5. The status quo of the detective fiction 11

5.1 An affinity for new material 11

5.2 The forensic direction 12

6. Conclusion 12

References 13

The Charm and Development of Western Detective Fiction from the Works of

Edgar Allan Poe to Agatha Christie

Yao Zhongqin

Department of English

School of Languages and Cultures

Nanjing University of Information Science amp; Technology

Abstract: Detective Fiction has triggered off interest among readers since its debut, and has gained widespread popularity all the way. However, most critics raise eyebrow to it and overlook its artistic value. Few if any academic research has been done to explore the reason of readers' devout obsession with this genre of literature from a literary perspective. The thesis, based on thorough reading of masterpiece of detective writers and tremendous social background information, is dedicated to answering how detective fiction catches on and evolves and the charm where it is still unfading.

Key words: Detective fiction, Evolution, Edgar Allan Poe, Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie

摘要：西方侦探小说自问世以来即受到读者喜爱，更一度风靡全球，但对其的关注在学术界并未受到重视，其文学艺术价值更长期被忽略，而且极少有学术性研究从文学角度来探讨它作为一种文学题材受到读者疯狂追捧的原因。本文通过对侦探小说大师作品的探究以及对当时社会背景的阐释，致力于挖掘侦探小说迅速发展流行的社会土壤，以及为何至今兴盛不衰的魅力所在。

关键词：侦探小说；演变；爱伦·坡；柯南·道尔；阿加莎·克里斯蒂

1. Introduction

Detective fiction is all about the murder mystery, or the cluedo and cadavers, which are the two central imposing and contrasting features of the genre. There is always a challenging puzzle that people might have worked out who killed Mr. Black or Miss White. It is like an entertaining brain teaser that is put in to test readers’ power of observation and deduction or just their luck at guessing, a game that involves something that we usually show solemn face: corpses, cadavers, violent deaths. The classic detective novel which brings these elements together is proved to be one of the most popular literature genres that have been compulsively attractive to enormous number of readers.

Up to now, there has been a hot debate as to which book could claim to be the first detective story. But it is generally agreed that around the middle of the 19^th century is the time when detectives emerged. There is a terrific but good book by Judith Flanders, entitled The Invention of Murder with the subtitle “How the Victorians Reveled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime”. The book (Flanders, 2013:167) displays in the way that the crime novel as we now are aware of and started slowly to depart from a fascination with crime during the 19^th century. And in the section of the book published recently, she suggests how this starts to evolve into the detective novel. What she shows is that the Victorians weren’t just intoxicated by crime, but they were just drawn to investigation into crime. And there is a speech delivered by Peter Kemp, the chief fiction reviewer of the Sunday Times, with a long-standing interest in crime fiction, called Cluedo and Cadavers--History of Crime Fiction. It (Camp, 2012) elaborated the evolution of detective novel, which offers insightful and constructive guidance both for people who love to detect murderer and those academic people who tend to probe in the development of this kind of literary genre.

The thesis can be divided into parts as follows: firstly a brief survey of how crime fiction began. What is the origin of it? Who could be regarded as the first detective story writer? Then the development of the genre would be elaborated. And then it is the Golden Age, its first enormously popular heyday, to see what then detective fiction was like. And lastly it will discuss how the detective novel has been refined into our times as an immensely popular kind of genre.

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