This book investigates the development of crime fiction in the 1880s and 1890s, challenging studies of late-Victorian crime fiction which have given undue prominence to a handful of key figures and have offered an over-simplified analytical framework, thereby overlooking the generic, moral, and formal complexities of the nascent genre.
Introduction 1. 'Ordinary Secret Sinners': Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886). 2. 'The most popular book of modern times': Fergus Hume's The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (1886). 3. 'L'homme c'est rien - l'oeuvre c'est tout': the Sherlock Holmes stories and work. 4. Something for 'the silly season': Policing and the Press in Israel Zangwill's The Big Bow Mystery (1891). 5. Tales of 'mean streets': the criminal-detective in Arthur Morrison's The Dorrington Deed-Box (1897). 6. A Criminal in Disguise': class and empire in Guy Boothby's A Prince of Swindlers (1897). Conclusion Works Cited Index
