{"product_id":"detection-and-its-designs-peter-thoms-9780821412237","title":"Detection and Its Designs: Narrative and Power in Nineteenth-Century Detective Fiction","description":"Detective fiction is usually thought of as genre fiction, a vast group of works bound together by their use of a common formula. But, as Peter Thoms argues in his investigation of some of the most important texts in the development of detective fiction in the nineteenth century, the very works that establish the genre's formulaic structure also subvert that structure. \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eDetection and Its Designs\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e reads early detective fiction as a self-conscious form that is suspicious of the detective it ostensibly celebrates, and critical of the authorial power he wields in attempting to reconstruct the past and script a narrative of the crime. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e In readings of Godwin's \u003ci\u003eCaleb Williams\u003c\/i\u003e, Poe's Dupin stories, Dickens's \u003ci\u003eBleak House\u003c\/i\u003e, Collins's \u003ci\u003eThe Moonstone\u003c\/i\u003e, and Doyle's \u003ci\u003eThe Hound of the Baskervilles\u003c\/i\u003e, Thoms argues that the detective's figurative writing emerges out of a desire to exert control over others and sometimes over himself. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eDetection and Its Designs\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e demonstrates that, far from being a na?e form, early detective fiction grapples with the medium of storytelling itself. To pursue these inward-turning fictions is to uncover the detective's motives of controlling the representation of both himself and others, a discovery that in turn significantly undermines the authority of his solutions.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Peter Thoms\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 082141223X\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780821412237\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Ohio University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 04\/15\/1998\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 185\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.98lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.80h x 5.81w x 0.73d","brand":"Peter Thoms","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":45331725222143,"sku":"9780821412237","price":39.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_92446bf3-a150-42de-8dea-daa2d78223d3.jpg?v=1713970727","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/detection-and-its-designs-peter-thoms-9780821412237","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}