A STAKE-OUT OF SLEUTHS

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33241, 2 June 1973, Page 10

A STAKE-OUT OF SLEUTHS

The Collector’s Book of Detective Fiction. By Eric Quayle. Studio Vista. 127 pp. Index.

In this handsomely-illustrated book the author draws on his wide knowledge as a book-collector for a survey of detective fiction. Tracing the history of detective fiction takes the author back into the last century, and even before. But it was not until the nineteenth century was well advanced that the detective novel as it is understood today began to appear, simply because there could be no detective stories until there were real-life detectives, and before there could be detectives in any professional sense there had to be supporting regular police forces. Edgar Allan Poe is regarded as the father of the detective story. He was an American who was a writer of genius who, together with being a poet of some standing, had a strong influence on the development of the short story. Poe was deeply interested in crime, especially violent death, in cryptograms, and the whole process of logical deduction. With his “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” and the introduction of the eccentric and impecunious Auguste Dupin, we have the first fictional detective story, and the first fictional detective. In the book under review, a facsimile first page of “Graham’s Magazine” of April, 1841, is printed; it was on this page that “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” made its first appearance.

After the Edgar Allan Poe stories, the next significant phase in the evolution of detective fiction took place in France. The writings of the criminal gang-leader, Vidocq, who turned prince of thief-takers gave novelists an exciting series of fresh ideas. In England they were taken up, notably by Angus Bethune Reach, a crime reporter at the Old Bailey, London. Reach quickly became familiar with many of the members of the newly-formed detective police force, and with the methods used by the criminal fraternity. He put his knowledge to good use, and to Reach goes credit for the first fulllength “modern” crime story in which detection plays an important part. In 1848-49 he published in six monthly parts a tale of vendetta, racehorse doping, murder, slow poisoning, and abduction under the title of “Clement Lorimer; or, The Book with the Iron Clasps.”

The detective novel thrived in the Victorian years, including such notable practioners of the art as Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. During the author’s survey of this era mention is made of “a New Zealand author” (born in England but educated at Otago University) who wrote the phenomenally-successful “The Mystery of a Handsome Cab.” This was Ferguson Wright Hume, who wrote under the shortened name of Fergus Hume.

Very occasionally, a fictional character assumes a life of his own and steps from the pages of literature into our day-to-day existence. In the most

honoured place in this hierarchy stands Sherlock Holmes. He and his friend and chronicler, Dr Watson, have been known for nearly 100 years by readers throughout the world. The author devotes a full chapter to the Sherlock Homes saga, treating as he goes Conan Doyle, the physician who created Sherlock Holmes, Dr Joseph Bell, the Edinburgh surgeon under whom Sherlock Holmes had worked as a medical student and who unknowingly acted as a model for the fictional character of Sherlock Holmes, and, of course, the stories.

After Holmes, the detective story flourished in both cheap and expensive editions. Some of the best are discussed in a chapter, after which we are led by the author into the company of the Lady Sleuths, an indeed notable company from which it would perhaps be invidious to mention individuals, except perhaps Agatha Christie and Ngaio Marsh. A final chapter discusses the “modern” writers, for this purpose the world war of 1914-18 being taken as an arbitrary dividing line in time between the old-style detective story and the new. The reader of detective fiction will find many of his favourites coming up for judgment in this chapter. At the book’s end is an extensive index of authors and of titles of detective stories.

The book is handsomely illustrated. There are many illustrations in colour of books from the author’s comprehensive collection. Many events famous in the history of detective fiction are illustrated, including the picture on this page. This shows the first appearance of the Inverness cape and the famous deer-stalker cap, when Holmes and Watson were drawn by Sidney Paget for the story, “The Adventure of Silver Blaze,” in the December, 1892, issue of “The Strand Magazine.”