The Ascent of the Detective: Police Sleuths in Victorian and Edwardian England (review)

Despite considerable research in the history of policing in recent years, detectives have attracted little academic scrutiny. The Ascent of the Detective helps to remedy this neglect, situating the study of the police institution alongside its representation in print culture and exploring the sources of both subjects in detail. As such, this is an innovative piece of police history, which reveals the opportunities as well as the perils involved in such an exercise.

In the first half of the book, Shpayer-Makov cements her reputation as a leading historian of police organization and labor. A substantial opening chapter sets the scene, offering a wide-ranging account of police reform and the institutionalization of detectives in the nineteenth century. Further chapters deal successively with recruitment and the experience of detective work. A thorough analysis of the policy of internal recruitment highlights the overlapping duties of beat constables and detectives, and senior officers’ concerns to forge good relations between these groups. Although the position of detective had its moments—meeting celebrities and receiving gratuities—Shpayer-Makov strips away the glamor to display an occupation that was often frustrating and boring.

The second half of this study turns from the working lives of detectives to their representation in print. Detailed research from autobiographies supports a fascinating discussion of the often symbiotic relationship between policemen and journalists, after which Shpayer-Makov charts the gradual amelioration of press attitudes toward detectives. Her analysis of fictional portrayals suggests that contemporaries sometimes failed to distinguish between real and imaginary crime fighters. She also demonstrates that middle-class private detectives were featured in various forms of print, as they were thought better to embody the English national character than working-class policemen. The book ends with a thorough examination of detective memoirs, before concluding that the police detective became an increasingly accepted and professional part of law enforcement during the nineteenth century.

There is much to commend in this book. It is both scholarly and readable, providing much valuable information on criminal investigation. Shpayer-Makov’s main achievement lies in explicating how representations of detectives—especially in newspapers and memoirs—were constructed. Journalists feature almost as prominently as policemen. One figure who rarely receives attention, however, is the reader; this book does not lay out a suitable framework for understanding how detective narratives were consumed as well as produced. Although Shpayer-Makov deftly exposes the potential confusion of fiction for fact, her assertion that Victorians considered that “events were what they seemed” precludes any sustained exploration of how and by whom the various texts were interpreted, and how the varied messages that her book ably documents were navigated by readers in light of their social experience (224). Hopefully, The Ascent of the Detective will spur others to consider these and other issues, and to take more seriously the connections between policing and print culture.