Auguste Comte

In the opening of Poe’s tales we are introduced to detective Dupin through a description of his character in ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’, and by a description of his character’s actions in ‘The Purloined Letter’ by the narrator, the detective’s partner, who in this case remains nameless. Immediately after that we are made aware that a crime has been committed. To solve the crime one must have the ability to put oneself in the criminal’s mind and understand things from their perspective. In…

Sherlock Holmes, the greatest detective in the world, is one of the most recognizable literary characters. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's legacy has been immortalized many times throughout the years in various small and big screen adaptations. One of the more recent and positively reviewed is the 2009 mystery action flick simply titled Sherlock Holmes, directed by Guy Ritchie. Robert Downey Jr. steps into the shoes of the great detective and is set on the momentous task of hunting down Lord Henry…

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is one of the pioneers of the English detective fiction and he created a new trend in detective fiction through his Sherlock Holmes stories. He is the inspirational force behind many modern sleuths, who still show the traces of Sherlock Holmes, the first scientific detective of the world. Many writers of the later centuries were greatly influenced by Doyle. Isaac Asimov, the popular American mastermind, is one of those writers, who were attracted by Doyle. Though he once…

The novel The Pledge is originally subtitled Requiem for the Detective Novel. In what way is The Pledge a traditional detective novel and in what way is it not? Discuss. The Pledge is a crime novella written by Friedrich Dürrenmatt in the 1950’s. Since it was originally subtitled Requiem for the Detective Novel, this raises the question – how is it so different from other novels in the same genre? This question will be answered in this essay by thoroughly analyzing the plot as well as the…

Detective fiction is a sub genre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator a detective—either professional, amateur or retired —investigates a crime, often a murder.In ancient literature some scholars have suggested that certain ancient and religious texts have similarities which what would later be called detective fiction. In the Old Testament story of Susanna and the Elders (the Protestant Bible locates this story within the apocrypha), the account told by two witnesses…

Ophelia was painted with oil on canvas by Sir John Everett Millais (The Story of Ophelia). Millais was known for his great attention to detail when it came to the botanical aspects, so much so that a professor teaching botany would take his students to see Ophelia because the representations of the flowers were so close to nature (The Story of Ophelia). The concept of this painting was born out of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In Hamlet, the title character’s love interest, Ophelia tragically…

In the late 1880’s of Victorian England, one of the most iconic and well-known duo’s was created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.Throughout his book, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson can be seen as two complete opposites. Their differences are revealed through the roles they play in the book, how they think, and how they change from the beginning to the end of the novel. Even through their hardships and disagreements, Watson and Holmes use their differences to make up the…

Written in 1939 and directed in 1941 respectively, The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler and The Maltese Falcon by John Huston are iconic in the detective genre for reinventing what it really means to be a detective in the world of literature. Their main characters are a far cry from the Sherlock Holmes and the Philo Vance type of private eye who never make any mistakes and always get the better of the villain. Instead, their detectives are gritty, hardened, and deeply flawed. However, one detective…

The Thesis of the Baskervilles Every day, cases happen in the detective department of a police station. Nobody knows whether the mysteries will be solved or will be known as a mystery forever. Detective skills date back to the 1800’s and people before that most likely used clues to solve mysteries. But even a detective’s assistant can be more important than the officer himself. In the book The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Watson, a detective’s assistant, is set off to…

Have you ever wondered how the Sherlock Holmes are similar to other detective stories. Im comparing three stories to other Sherlock stories. What are the things that make Sherlocks Holmes a good author. The first story i'm comparing is The adventure of the speckled band to a story called The Murders Of In Rue Morgue. These stories are different and similar in many ways. The first thing that makes the stories similar is the murders. However, the murders occur differently. In The adventure of…