We must have certainty
Subtitle: four essays on the detective story
By: J.K. Van Dover.
Publisher: Susquehanna University Press
Published: 2005
Place of publication: Selinsgrove, Pa
Language: eng
Number of pages: 220
Subjects: Detective and mystery stories, English -- History and criticism.; Detective and mystery stories, American -- History and criticism.
Description: "We Must Have Certainty surveys 160 years of the development of the genre (1841-2001) and then suggests some ways in which the genre and its development reflect some of the issues that have concerned writers and readers in America and Europe during that period. In particular, it examines the special nature of the world in which the fictional detective operates: a world constructed always to yield certain truth to the person who can read its signs correctly. The nature of these signs evolves with the genre, but while the surfaces of the world may change (from, for example, the Arcadian rhythms of a country house to the cacophony of the mean streets), what really happens in the world is always detectable."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 205-213) and index.
Table of contents: title: The development of the detective story, 1841-2004; title: The world of the detective story; title: Classic mystery; title: "All men by nature desire to know" : the metaphysics of the detective story.