Maurizio Ascari, A Counter-History of Crime Fiction. Supernatural, Gothic, Sensational

Maurizio ASCARI, A Counter-History of Crime Fiction. Supernatural, Gothic, Sensational, New York, Palgrave Macmillan (Crime Files), 2007, 240 p.
ISBN 0-230-52500-8


RÉSUMÉ

A Counter-History of Crime Fiction takes a new look at the evolution of crime fiction, drawing on material from the Middle Ages up to the early Twentieth century, when the genre was theoretically defined as detective fiction. Considering 'criminography' as a system of inter-related, even incestuous, sub-genres, Maurizio Ascari explores the connections between modes of literature such as revenge tragedies and providential fictions, the gothic and the ghost story, urban mysteries and anarchist fiction, while taking into account the influence of pseudo-sciences such as mesmerism and criminal anthropology.


TABLE DES MATIÈRES

Acknowledgements

* Introduction

* Revising the Canon of Crime and Detection

* PART I: SUPERNATURAL AND GOTHIC

* Detection Before Detection

* Persecution and Omniscience

* Victorian Ghosts and Revengers

* Pseudo-Sciences and the Occult

* PART II: SENSATIONAL

* The Language of Auguste Dupin

* On the Sensational in Literature

* London as a 'Heart of Darkness'

* The Rhetoric of Atavism and Degeneration

* The Age of Formula Fiction

* Bibliography * Index


BIOGRAPHIE

Maurizio Ascari  is Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Bologna, Italy. His publications include books and essays on anarchist fiction, the formation of the literary canon and travel writing.