Detective Fiction: A Historical Survey

This exhibition of highlights in detective fiction attempts to portray the key moments in its development, high spots of its history, and some of its best-known examples.  

Since its inception, detective fiction has played second fiddle to literature and has been seen as light or non-serious reading, a sort of an earth-bound cousin to science fiction. It has also been extremely popular. That many of our greatest writers have written detective fiction is often overlooked. So is the fact that the best of detective fiction combines good writing with a puzzle that must be solved and, usually, at least surface knowledge of another role: being a concert musician, or a surgeon, or a deep-sea fisherman.  

“Mystery” and “detective” fiction are often used interchangeably. They are not the same thing. Mystery in literature has existed since the Bible was written and can involve mysteries of history, nature, or the human heart. Detective fiction is distinguished by a basic set of rules:  

1. There must be a detective. The detective can be a professional or an amateur, but they are aware that a crime—usually murder—has been committed, and are actively taking steps to find the culprit.  
2. The reader must be made aware of a series of clues, in real time, as discovered by the detective. The writer needs to put the reader in the position of having suspicions about some of the characters. 
3. The primary focus must be on finding the culprit. There are very few love stories in detective fiction. 
4. The culprit must appear early in the narrative and have a motive that derives from the circumstances. The culprit can neither enter the scene in the last paragraph nor have a motive that comes from left field.  
5. The identity, the motive, and the method must be revealed near or at the end of the narrative. A satisfying detective novel does not end in a cliffhanger. 
6. Some of the best writers have radically deviated from one or more of the rules, but usually in a way that tweaks the genre and refreshes it (Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, for example). 

Virtually all of the books shown here are examples of the detective genre. The exhibition is organized chronologically, but trends come in fits and starts; there is not always a distinct linear progression. The earliest piece of fiction in the exhibition, William Leggett’s “The Rifle,” appeared in 1826. Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” did not appear until 1841, fifteen years later. Poe’s story, however, was the opening of the floodgates compared to Leggett’s small crack in the dam.  

I do not pretend to have every key book in detective fiction; I am extremely light on the “hard-boiled” school, for instance. Chosen works represent important aspects of the history of the genre, all come from my collection, and all are first editions from the author’s home country unless specifically stated.  The occasional references to Queen’s Quorum and Haycraft-Queen denote a book’s inclusion in these two important reference works. 

The hardest part of preparing for this exhibition was deciding what books not to use. While I admit I have many holes in my collection, less than twenty percent of the total is on display here.