The ascent of the detective : police sleuths in Victorian and Edwardian England /
The figure of the detective has long excited the imagination of the wider public, and the English police detective has been a special focus of attention in both print and visual media. Yet, while much has been written in the last three decades about the history of uniformed policemen in England, no...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Oxford ; New York :
Oxford University Press,
2011.
|
| Subjects: |
| Summary: | The figure of the detective has long excited the imagination of the wider public, and the English police detective has been a special focus of attention in both print and visual media. Yet, while much has been written in the last three decades about the history of uniformed policemen in England, no similar work has focused on police detectives. The Ascent of the Detective redresses this by exploring the diverse and often arcane world of English police detectives during the formative period of their profession, from 1842 until the First World War, with special emphasis on the famed detective branch established at Scotland Yard. The book starts by illuminating the detectives' socioeconomic background, how and why they became detectives, their working conditions, the differences between them and uniformed policemen and their relations with the wider community. It then goes on to trace the factors that shaped their changing public image, from the embodiment of 'un-English' values to plebeian knights in armor, investigating the complex and symbiotic exchange between detectives and journalists and analyzing their image as it unfolded in the press, in literature and in their own memoirs. |
|---|---|
| Physical Description: | 429 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780199577408 0199577404 9780191617966 0191617962 |