Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

This book provides an original and compelling analysis of the ways in which British women’s golden age crime narratives negotiate the conflicting social and cultural forces that influenced depictions of gender in popular culture in the 1920s until the late 1940s. The book explores a wide variety of texts produced both by writers who have been the focus of a relatively large amount of critical attention, such as Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and Margery Allingham, but also those who have received comparatively little, such as Christianna Brand, Ngaio Marsh, Gladys Mitchell, Josephine Tey and Patricia Wentworth. Through its original readings, this book explores the ambivalent nature of modes of femininity depicted in golden age crime fiction, and shows that seemingly conservative resolutions are often attempts to provide a ‘modern-yet-safe’ solution to the conflicts raised in the texts.

Fiction --- English literature --- Literature --- History --- fantasy --- literatuur --- vrouwen --- gender --- literatuurgeschiedenis --- Engelse literatuur --- Sayers, Dorothy L. --- Marsh, Ngaio --- Christie, Agatha --- Wentworth, Patricia --- Allingham, Margery --- anno 1920-1929 --- anno 1930-1939 --- anno 1940-1949 --- Great Britain --- Ireland

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

This book explores why crime fiction so often alludes to Shakespeare. It ranges widely over a variety of authors including classic golden age crime writers such as the four ‘queens of crime’ (Allingham, Christie, Marsh, Sayers), Nicholas Blake and Edmund Crispin, as well as more recent authors such as Reginald Hill, Kate Atkinson and Val McDermid. It also looks at the fondness for Shakespearean allusion in a number of television crime series, most notably Midsomer Murders, Inspector Morse and Lewis, and considers the special sub-genre of detective stories in which a lost Shakespeare play is found. It shows how Shakespeare facilitates discussions about what constitutes justice, what authorises the detective to track down the villain, who owns the countryside, national and social identities, and the question of how we measure cultural value.

Fiction --- American literature --- English literature --- Literature --- Amerindian literature --- detectiveromans --- fantasy --- literatuur --- Renaissance --- Amerikaanse cultuur --- Engelse literatuur --- Sayers, Dorothy L. --- Christie, Agatha --- Shakespeare, William --- McDermid, Val --- Atkinson, Kate --- Hill, Regeinald --- Allingham, Margery --- anno 1400-1499 --- anno 1500-1599 --- anno 1900-1999 --- anno 2000-2099 --- Great Britain --- Ireland --- United States of America