Twentieth-Century Suspense: The Thriller Comes of Age (Insights)

This volume contains seventeen critical essays on a selection of the most influential and the most interesting suspense writers of the twentieth century. From the glittering world of Raffles to the domestic terror of The Magic Cottage, and from the heroics of Bulldog Drummond to the dogged pursuits of Miss Marple, this volume traces a variety of suspense writers: those well known, such as Agatha Christie, Dennis Wheatley or Dorothy L. Sayers, and those less well known: Elizabeth Brown, Elizabeth Jenkins and the 'new was' feminist thriller writers of today and the half-forgotten women detective writers of the early part of this century. Also included is Alfred Hitchcock, British suspense in a Hollywood setting, and the work of Cornell Woolrich, gothic writing in American setting. Front Matter....Pages i-xi The Immorally Rich and the Richly Immoral: Raffles and the Plutocracy....Pages 1-21 West is East: Nayland Smith’s Sinophobia and Sax Rohmer’s Bank Balance....Pages 22-36 Fear’s Keen Knife: Suspense and the Female Detective, 1890–1920....Pages 37-50 A Society of Murderers Run on Sound Conservative Lines: The Life and Times of Sapper’s Bulldog Drummond....Pages 51-68 The Novels of Leslie Charteris....Pages 69-79 Ordeal by Analysis: Agatha Christie’s The Thirteen Problems....Pages 80-96 Dorothy Sayers: The Masks of Lord Peter....Pages 97-113 Elizabeth Bowen’s Stories of Suspense....Pages 114-129 But One Isn’t Murdered: Elizabeth Bowen’s The Little Girls....Pages 130-142 Fifty Million Copies: The Fiction of Dennis Wheatley....Pages 143-160 Margery Allingham and Reader Response....Pages 161-173 The View from the Rear Window: The Fiction of Cornell Woolrich....Pages 174-188 Hitchcock and the Mechanics of Cinematic Suspense....Pages 189-202 Grace under Pressure: Reading Alistair MacLean....Pages 203-224 Elizabeth Jenkins: Perhaps the History Woman....Pages 225-236 Feminist Detective Fiction....Pages 237-254 The Gentleman’s Excuse-me: The Male Apologist and the Experience of Realism in James Herbert’s The Magic Cottage....Pages 255-270 Back Matter....Pages 271-273 This series aims to bring to academics, students and general readers the best contemporary criticism on neglected literary and cultural areas. This volume contains 17 critical essays on influential suspense writers of the 20th century. "First published in the United States of America in 1990"--T.p. verso. Edited By Clive Bloom. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.