Dime Novels and the Roots of American Detective Fiction [electronic resource] /
Bedore, P.author.
This book reveals subversive representations of gender, race and class in detective dime novels (1860-1915), arguing that inherent tensions between subversive and conservative impulses—theorized as contamination and containment—explain detective fiction's ongoing popular appeal to readers and to writers such as Twain and Faulkner.
Description based upon print version of record.
Cover; Half-Title; Title; Copyright; Dedication; Contents; List of Appendix Tables; Acknowledgments; 1 The Case of the Missing Detectives;  or, Reassessing the American Contribution to Detective Fiction; Introduction; Construing the absence of the dime novel detective; Who is the American dime novel detective?; Disrupting existing narratives about detective fiction; Some organizing principles; 2 The Happy-Ending Deception;  or, Uncovering the Subversive Potential of Detective Dime Novels; Introduction; The primacy of endings: a theoretical excursion
Methods and trends: (de)coding the dime novel detectiveA shadowy detective and a police captain: gender bending and genre blending; Forced marriages, faked weddings, and gendered problems of closure; The detectives that don't work out: death and corruption in the detective position; A Terrible Ending: an unambiguous antidote to happy endings; In conclusion ...; 3 The Case of the Contaminated Icon;  or, Allan Pinkerton's Dangerous Detective Doubles; Introduction; Allan Pinkerton's iconography: all-seeing eyes, Civil War spies, and the Underground Railroad
Pinkerton's generic breadth: classical, hardboiled, police, and diverse detectivesContamination and the problems of deep cover; Outlaw doubling lite: the humorous logic of bodily substitution; Outlaw doubling darkened through the prism of graphic torture; Conclusion; 4 Playing with the Ace of Hearts;  or, Mentorship, Sportsmanship, and Nick Carter's Epistemological Dilemmas; Introduction; Nick Carter's school for detectives: mentorship and fair play; The mediating power of games; The ethical and erotic mediations of the femme fatale; Proto-postmodern epistemological investigations; Conclusion
5 Faulkner, Twain, and the Legacy of Dime Novel DetectivesIntroduction; White elephants, doubled barrels, and Mark Twain's detective obsessions; Chasing the unknown gambit;  or, mentorship and games in Nick Carter and Gavin Stevens; Conclusion; 6 Conclusions and Directions for Future Research; Appendix Tables; Notes; References; Index
Includes bibliographical references and index.
This book reveals subversive representations of gender, race and class in detective dime novels (1860-1915), arguing that inherent tensions between subversive and conservative impulses—theorized as contamination and containment—explain detective fiction's ongoing popular appeal to readers and to writers such as Twain and Faulkner.
Sociology.
America—Literatures.
Literature.
Crime—Sociological aspects.
Literature—Philosophy.
Culture—Study and teaching.
Gender Studies.
North American Literature.
Literature, general.
Crime and Society.
Literary Theory.
Cultural Theory.