Sherlock Holmes, late 19th Century Crime Fiction and Modernity

Name the three Sherlock Holmes stories required for this topic and their publication years

• Silver Blaze (1892)

• A Scandal in Bohemia (1891)

• The Adventure of the Speckled Band (1892)

Give three reasons why audiences are consistently drawn to crime fiction

1. Desire for meaning and to make sense of chaos and rupture in our society

2. Crime Fiction is a genre deeply engaged with the past, making it comforting during times of social upheaval due to its analysis of social issues and commitment to understanding ‘how we got here’ in a sense

3. Also. genre that consistently explores the relationship between subjective and systemic violence

Give 4 points of information about reading as a pastime in 19th century Britain

• Increase in literacy rates especially amongst women, working class and lower middle class → First ‘mass’ reading audience

• Advances in technology → Cheaper printing which leads to explosion of magazine publications

• Increase in leisure and commuting times

• Increased access to libraries

Give 3 points of information about pre-detective crime fiction during the 1800s

• Marketed to the less literate (lots of illustrations)

• Focus on terror, violence and melodrama

• ‘Penny Bloods’ in the 1830s-40s included a focus on graphic violence and depictions of criminals as animalistic, instilling a fear of the working class

Give 4 points of information about late 19th century crime fiction

• Focus in crime fiction shifts to POLICING crime in the 1860s

• Wider reading audience due to increased literacy rates among other things

• Increased social and political commentary in crime fiction

• Detective figure begins to emerge

Who is credited with creation of one of the first popular detectives in 19th century crime fiction and name the detective character

• Edgar Allan Poe

• Private Detective Dupin

Name 3 well known thinkers during the 19th century who impacted Arthur Conan Doyle and Crime Fiction, include their lifespans

• Thomas Huxley (1825 - 95)

• John Tyndall (1820 - 93)

• John Stuart Mill (1806 - 73)

Doyle had is religious faith shaken by new thinkers of the 19th century and the “- - - - - -”

“strong sweeping current of their thought”

WHY can crime fiction be considered a literature of modernity? (2 points)

• It responds to the rapid changes to the way we live and work brought on during the modernity period

• Is this why crime fiction is still so popular today? As we are still living through modernity?

Give three points of information explaining WHAT modernity is

• The stage in history beginning at the end of the 18th century up

• Signified by democratic and industrial revolutions

• Emphasizes the Mechanical vs the Organic

Quote from Watson that backs up the idea of Holmes as an ‘exemplar of modernity’ (INCLUDE CITATION)

According to Watson, Holmes is “the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen” (Scandal, Chap 1)

Give 7 features of Modernity in 19th Century Britain

1. Increased urbanisation

2. Mechanization of movement (Horse → Train → Automobile)

3. Industrialization and mechanization of work (Factories)

4. New technologies (Photography, steam-powered machines etc)

5. Rise in bureaucracy and taxonomic systems of classifications

6. New sciences of body and mind (Darwinism)

7. Increased literacy

Name 4 features of 19th Century British Modernity and the Anxieties they contributed to

• Burgeoning Cities → Fear of the unknown in the crowd

• Empire Rebellion → Fear of invasion by foreign other

• Evolution, Sciences of Criminality and the Mind → Fear of the ‘animal within’

• New Technologies → Fear of their impact on the human body etc

How does Sherlock Holmes represent Scientific Positivism? [Holmes as Figure of Modernity]

His investment in the ‘science of deduction’ and love of experiments

How does Sherlock Holmes represent Modernity’s Technological Innovations? [Holmes as Figure of Modernity]

Through his use of new technologies such as photography, telegraphs, science labs, experiments

How does Sherlock Holmes represent Modernity’s increased Class Mobility [Holmes as Figure of Modernity]

His sense of ease with everyone he meets, from Kings (of Bohemia) to cabmen

How does Sherlock Holmes represent the increase in consumer choice and mass production? [Holmes as Figure of Modernity]

Watson’s selling of Holmes stories to magazines and his subsequent rise to fame in the text

How does Sherlock Holmes represent the Freedom of new identities and possibilities that Modernity provided? [Holmes as figure of Modernity]

He defines a new profession (consulting detective), he is class fluid and occasionally gender fluid

There is a tension between confidence in and anxieties about modernity in Sherlock Holmes stories. Name 4 ways that these anxieties are expressed.

• The foregrounding of criminality

• Focus on death and violence

• Abuse of women

• Threat of foreign violence