The Detective Story (Critical Survey of Short Fiction)
Background
Though Edgar Allan Poe generally is considered the father of detective fiction, some historians of the genre go as far back as ancient Greece and Herodotus’s tale of King Rhampsinitus or to the biblical story of Susanna and the Elders for the origins of this popular literary form. These putative sources share elements with mystery fiction—natural cunning, the cross-examination of witnesses, false clues—but lack major essentials. The same can be said about many...
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