This book is a study of the 'mothers' of the mystery genre. Traditionally the invention of crime writing has been ascribed to Poe, Wilkie Collins and Conan Doyle, but they had formidable women rivals, whose work has been until recently largely forgotten. The purpose of this book is to 'cherchez les femmes', in a project of rediscovery.

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Reviews

'Lucy Sussex...makes a persuasive case for many of the neglected female progenitors of the detective genre; the final effect of this concise but information-packed volume will be to send readers out to scour bookshop shelves for some neglected but intriguing women writers.'

- Barry Forshaw, Crime Time

'...a wide-ranging excavation of the work of lesser-known authors such as Catherine Crowe and Metta Victoria Fuller as well as more famous figures, including Mary Braddon and Anna Katharine Green.' - Emelyne Godfrey, 'Top History Moments of 2010', History Today

'If ever a volume filled a gap and served a niche audience, this is it...a volume well worth owning...' - Choice

About the author

LUCY SUSSEX is a Senior Research Fellow at Melbourne University, Australia, with interests in Victoriana, Australiana, crime and women writers. She has published widely, having edited five anthologies, written three short story collections and the award-winning neo-Victorian novel The Scarlet Rider. In addition she is a weekly newspaper columnist.

Bibliographic Information

Book Title: Women Writers and Detectives in Nineteenth-Century Crime Fiction
Book Subtitle: The Mothers of the Mystery Genre
Authors: Lucy Sussex
Series Title: Crime Files
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230289406
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan London
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature Collection, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 2010
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-230-27229-3Published: 16 July 2010
Softcover ISBN: 978-1-349-32311-1Published: 01 January 2010
eBook ISBN: 978-0-230-28940-6Published: 16 July 2010
Series ISSN: 2947-8340
Series E-ISSN: 2947-8359
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XII, 216
Topics: Fiction, Nineteenth-Century Literature, British and Irish Literature, Gender Studies

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Table of contents (11 chapters)

Front Matter

Back Matter

About this book