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Roger Quinonez
Professor Haas
Writing 37
6 November, 2014
The Development of the Detective Genre
Detective Fiction had its roots with Edgar Allen Poe. However, in the Victorian
Era, the detective genre matured greatly thanks to Conan Doyle and his rational
thinking skills, his intelligence, and his willingness to connect to his audience.
Literary scholars have taken note of Doyles achievements. Some of these scholars
include Jerome Delameter who wrote Theory and Practice of Classic Detective
Fiction, LeRoy Panek who wrote An Introduction to the Detective Story, George
Dove, author of The Reader and the Detective Story, and T.J. Binyon author of
Murder Will Out: The Detective in Fiction. These scholars analyzed and came up
ideas on why the detective genre bloomed. Some of their ideas were the structure
of the plot, the characteristics of the detective, and the role that the reader has in
the detective genre. All of these ideas intertwine and show us how the detective
genre grew.
Of the things that these scholars have written about was the structure of the
detective genre. According to Jerome Delameter , The unique formal pattern of the
detective story genre lies in its double and duplicitous plot(Delameter 22). The plot
of the detective genre is deceitful because the case thats needs to be solved is
usually very complex and obscure; there are two versions of the plot as well, one
with the perspective of the detective and one of the reader. Binyon also agrees with
Delameter with this topic. He says that the detective genre is unique and structured

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because they follow 4 main rules like a dark setting, a plot that is intriguing, a
narrator, and a good detective tone in the story (Binyon 11). They both agree that
the detective genre story has to involve a certain set of rules and they would highfive each other once the discussion is over. Their points can be derived from The
Hound of the Baskervilles because in the novel Doyle writes, It is a singular thing,
but I find that a concentrated atmosphere helps a concentration of thought(Loc.
1258). Doyle implies that being in a dark setting helps the detective solve the
cases and these scholars saw that Doyle wrote a structured plot was key to the rise
of the detective genre. However, one must forget about the protagonist in the
detective stories.
Since the detective genre has a structured plot, the detective is the protagonist
in this genre. The main character has to be someone who the reader can look up
to. Conan Doyle did exactly that, he created Sherlock Holmes. Binyon praises Doyle
for creating Holmes, saying that Holmes is the first of the great detectives. He is
probably the greatest of them all, and certainly the best known. He has given
society its popular image of a detective: a tall, thin, eagle-eyed figure in cloak and
deerstalker, with a magnifying glass in one hand and pipe in the other (Binyon 11).
Binyon thinks that since Holmes was a class above everyone else, he was seen as a
hero and as a god-like character. However, Delamater thinks that the main
character doesnt have to be looked up to but just be every different than everyone
else. In his excerpt, he says His chronicler, Dr. John H. Watson, characterizes
Holmes as emotionless, unable to love, possessing a cold and detached mind, a
mind that Watson equates with a scientific instrument (Delamater 22). These are
not characteristics of a hero that everyone looks up to. He is just completely

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different from everyone else. In this case, he is basically a breathing robot. Binyon
and Delameter dont see eye to eye but overall they both have the same idea that
the detective has to be a unique figure for the readers. Sherlock Holmes had, in a
very remarkable degree, the power of detaching his mind at will. For two hours the
strange business in which we had been involved appeared to be forgotten, and he
was entirely absorbed in the pictures of the modern Belgian masters (Loc. 1478),
shows why the scholars thought the way they did about Holmes. Holmes just has
these natural abilities that either makes people look up to him or makes him stand
out in society. Not only did the reader read these novels for the detective, they
also had a key role in the detective genre.
Going back to the plot structure of a detective story, a convention of the
detective genre is the role of the reader. The reader is one of the or the main point
of writing detective genre stories. The reader reads these stories for recreation and
leisure. They dont have time for huge Romantic novels, so they resorted to short,
entertaining novels. In Paneks Doyle, he says Doyle does not give readers all the
facts, but, as he says in The Crooked Man, retains some factors in the problem
which are never imparted to the reader. He, rather, builds stories so the facts
slowly evolve before your eyes and the mystery clears gradually away as each
discovery furnishes a step which leads to the complete truth(Panek 37). Basically,
the detective genre is a game/adventure and the reader must also put clues
together so they can enjoy the book. However, not all clues are given so they have
to finish the book. In contrast, Dove says that the reader already knows whats
going to happen because they have most of the context and before turning to the
first page, for example, the reader is already assured that this story will deal with a

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mystery that is not only deeply but doubly wrapped and veiled and that it will be
solved by the detective-protagonist before the story ends (Dove 24). Dove implies
that the reason for the popularity of the detective genre was not because of the
plot. The other reason for its popularity, as given by Panek , was recreation. In The
Hound of the Baskervilles , The whole course of events, said Holmes, from the
point of view of the man who called himself Stapleton was simple and direct,
although to us, who had no means in the beginning of knowing the motives of his
actions and could only learn part of the facts, it all appeared exceedingly
complex(Loc. 3380). Therefore, the detective genre has a key role for the reader
to fill.
All of the scholars ideas and findings give us many perspectives on why the
detective genre grew exponentially during the Victorian Era. Conan Doyle was
basically the main person for the development and growth of the detective genre.
His sense of realism and intelligent ideas helped the genre come to life during this
era. Many literary scholars studied the detective genre and Doyles novels and they
came up with their own ideas on why the genre has its classical period. Some of
them have the same viewpoints, while others have other ideas that can be debated.
Overall, these ideas are why the detective genre still developed after Conan Doyle
and is still one of the most popular genres today.

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Works Cited

Conan Doyle, Arthur. The Hound of the Baskerville. Sharon: Higher Read, LLC, 2013. Print.
Delamater, Jerome and Ruth Prigozy, eds. Theory and Practice of Classic Detective Fiction. New York: Praeger,
1997.
Dove, George N. The Reader and the Detective Story. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular
Press, 1997. Print.
Binyon, T.J. "Murder Will Out": The Detective in Fiction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. 9-12.
Print.

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Panek, Leroy. Doyle. An Introduction to the Detective Story. Bowling Green, OH:
Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1987. PDF File.