Crime Writing in Interwar Britain
Fact and Fiction in the Golden Age

Considering a range of neglected material, this book provides a richer view of how crime and criminality were understood between the wars.

Victoria Stewart (Author)

9781316510001, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 24 August 2017

214 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 1.7 cm, 0.45 kg

'In this slim but thought provoking title, Victoria Stuart (sic) sets out to examine the relationship between real life crimes and interwar detective fiction … It is easy to tells that Stuart (sic) has put a lot of time and effort into researching her subject, as the additional footnotes have a wealth of interesting and important information, meaning that you don't need too much prior knowledge before reading the book. This is definitely a book I think golden age detective fiction fans will get a lot out of …' Kate Jackson, CADS (Crime and Detective Stories)

The interwar period is often described as the 'Golden Age' of detective fiction, but many other kinds of crime writing, both factual and fictional, were also widely read during these years. Crime Writing in Interwar Britain: Fact and Fiction in the Golden Age considers some of this neglected material in order to provide a richer and more complex view of how crime and criminality were understood between the wars. A number of the authors discussed, including Dorothy L. Sayers, Marie Belloc Lowndes and F. Tennyson Jesse, wrote about crime in essays, book reviews, newspaper articles and works of popular criminology, as well as in novels and short stories. Placing debates about detective fiction in the context of this largely forgotten but rich and diverse culture of writing about crime will give a unique new picture of how criminality and the legal process were considered at this time.

1. Revisiting Victorian sensations
2. F. Tennyson Jesse and the modern murderer
3. In search of the perfect crime: Dorothy L. Sayers and detection in fact and fiction
4. Dangerous men in interwar writing.

Subject Areas: Crime & criminology [JKV], Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK], Reportage & collected journalism [DNJ]