In this Book

buy this book Buy This Book in Print
summary
Dreams for Dead Bodies: Blackness, Labor, and  the Corpus of American Detective Fiction offers new arguments about the origins of detective fiction in the United States, tracing the lineage of the genre back to unexpected texts and uncovering how authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Pauline Hopkins, and Rudolph Fisher made use of the genre’s puzzle-elements to explore the shifting dynamics of race and labor in America.
 
The author constructs an interracial genealogy of detective fiction to create a nuanced picture of the ways that black and white authors appropriated and cultivated literary conventions that coalesced in a recognizable genre at the turn of the twentieth century. These authors tinkered with detective fiction’s puzzle-elements to address a variety of historical contexts, including the exigencies of chattel slavery, the erosion of working-class solidarities by racial and ethnic competition, and accelerated mass production. Dreams for Dead Bodies demonstrates that nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American literature was broadly engaged with detective fiction, and that authors rehearsed and refined its formal elements in literary works typically relegated to the margins of the genre. By looking at these margins, the book argues, we can better understand the origins and cultural functions of American detective fiction.
 

Table of Contents

Download EPUB Download Full EPUB
  1. Cover
  2. open access
    • View HTML View
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Title Page
  2. pp. i-iii
  3. open access
    • View HTML View
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Copyright Page
  2. p. iv
  3. open access
    • View HTML View
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Contents
  2. pp. v-vi
  3. open access
    • View HTML View
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Acknowledgments
  2. pp. vii-viii
  3. open access
    • View HTML View
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Introduction: The Original Plotmaker
  2. pp. 1-27
  3. open access
    • View HTML View
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Chapter 1: Reverse Type
  2. pp. 28-61
  3. open access
    • View HTML View
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Chapter 2: The Art of Framing Lies
  2. pp. 62-94
  3. open access
    • View HTML View
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Chapter 3: To Have Been Possessed
  2. pp. 95-130
  3. open access
    • View HTML View
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Chapter 4: The Great Work Remaining before Us
  2. pp. 131-162
  3. open access
    • View HTML View
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Chapter 5: Prescription: Homicide?
  2. pp. 163-200
  3. open access
    • View HTML View
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Conclusion: Dream within a Dream
  2. pp. 201-214
  3. open access
    • View HTML View
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Notes
  2. pp. 215-232
  3. open access
    • View HTML View
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Bibliography
  2. pp. 233-250
  3. open access
    • View HTML View
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Index
  2. pp. 251-256
  3. open access
    • View HTML View
    • Download PDF Download
Back To Top

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Without cookies your experience may not be seamless.