English 242 - A History of Mystery

Dean Flower

MW 2.40-4

A study of the development of detective fiction in English, starting with gothic mysteries in the late 18th century and with the investigatory puzzles of Edgar Allan Poe in the 1830s. Exploration of the ways in which the conventions of the genre reflect issues of class, gender, and social change, and how in the 20th century those conventions have been re-invented, stylized, parodied, and transformed. Writers discussed will include Poe, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, Conan Doyle, G. K. Chesterton, E. C. Bentley, Dorothy Sayers, Agatha Christie, Jorge Luis Borges, and others.

Open to non-majors.