British Crime writing: Conan Doyle, Sayers, Allingham, Hill and Rankin

Few genres map cultural change as closely as crime writing. Reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Dorothy L Sayers, Margery Allingham, Reginald Hill, and Ian Rankin, this course considers the shift from the detective mystery through urban grit to full-blown political and national portraiture, with evolving representations of police, murdered bodies, forensics, and beliefs about crime and punishment. 

Aims

This course aims to: 

• consider crime writing seriously, not as mere entertainment
   
• explore crime writing as social and other history
   
• situate crime writing of the last century within history

Content

Crime writing has evolved at tremendous speed over the last century. The Holmes stories (1886–1927) epitomise a Golden Age, centred on the short story and more interested in the supersleuth hero than in policing or sociology. That bias extended into a second Golden Age, centred on the novel and the ‘Queens of Crime’, Christie, Sayers, and Allingham, but while Christie largely stuck to formula, the others struck out in new directions.

Sayers shifted focus from episodic crime to the inner life of the investigator. Some find Wimsey annoying, but in the books featuring Harriet Vane, culminating in Gaudy Night (1935) and Busman’s Honeymoon (1937), Sayers developed the criminal novel of manners and laid the basis for most later series. We will look at Gaudy Night, as concerned with women’s education as with crime, and studded with Renaissance epigraphs signalling a new literary self-consciousness for the genre.

Allingham’s breakthrough came later. Her investigator, Campion, began as a parody of Wimsey, and in her earlier novels crimes and settings are Golden Age, but The Tiger in the Smoke (1952) is the first great British novel of urban crime and psychopathic violence. Allingham’s departure reflects hard-boiled, Chandleresque developments in the genre, and anticipated the current generic norm of overstretched policing in a grim cityscape.

Hill’s Dalziel and Pascoe series is the finest, funniest series of recent decades. The second novel, An Advancement of Learning (1971), revisioning Gaudy Night, reconsiders education in a new university rather than hallowed Oxford, with murder and a police investigation in foreground focus. But Sayers’s concern with inner life remains, and her habit of resonant allusions, underpinning exciting mystery with a concern extending to society and culture.

Ian Rankin is among the most popular living writers, primarily for his series featuring DI Rebus. His breakthrough came with Black and Blue (1997), combining current problems and an old, real case, the Bible John murders of 1968–9. The title, from the Rolling Stones, refers to colours of bruising, oil, and policing, and the novel is a Tartan noir state-of-the-nation assessment of Scotland on the verge of devolution.

Running through all are shifting attitudes to policing, women, sex, violence, and corpses that allow crime fiction to chart social history more closely than any other genre.

Presentation of the course 

Each session will begin with a mini-lecture and PowerPoint presentation, lasting 30–45 mins, and subsequently open to question and answer, and contributions by all.

Course sessions

1. Conan Doyle and the sage of Baker Street
    
2. Sayers and the detective novel of manners
    
3. Allingham and urban grit
    
4. Hill and the police novel of manners
    
5. Rankin and the state-of-the-nation novel

Learning outcomes

You are expected to gain from this series of classroom sessions a greater understanding of the subject and of the core issues and arguments central to the course. 

The learning outcomes for this course are:

• an understanding of the changing nature of crime fiction since 1890
   
• an appreciation of how such changes reflect wider social attitudes
   
• an understanding of the changing representation of police officers and their work
   
• an appreciation of the ambition’s crime writers have shown in the social dimensions of their art

Required reading

Allingham, Margery, The Tiger in the Smoke (London & New York: Vintage 1952, 2005) available on Kindle, ISBN: 0099477734

Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, The Complete Sherlock Holmes (Harmondsworth: Penguin 2009) available on Kindle, ISBN: 0141040289

This edition is strongly recommended; scores of others, often cheaper editions are available, but many are either not complete – there should be 56 short stories, as well as the four novels – or contain unauthorised alterations to the texts.

Hill, Reginald, An Advancement of Learning (London & New York: HarperCollins 1971, 2009) ISBN 0007313039

Rankin, Ian, Black and Blue (London: Orion 1997, 2008) 
available on Kindle, ISBN: 0752883607

Sayers, Dorothy L, Gaudy Night (London: Hodder 1935, 1987) 
available on Kindle, ISBN: 0450021548

Typical week: Monday to Friday 

Courses run from Monday to Friday. For each week of study, you select a morning (Am) course and an afternoon (Pm) course. The maximum class size is 25 students.   

Courses are complemented by a series of daily plenary lectures, exploring new ideas in a wide range of disciplines. To add to your learning experience, we are also planning additional evening talks and events. 

Evaluation and Academic Credit  

If you are seeking to enhance your own study experience, or earn academic credit from your Cambridge Summer Programme studies at your home institution, you can submit written work for assessment for one or more of your courses.  

Essay questions are set and assessed against the University of Cambridge standard by your Course Director, a list of essay questions can be found in the Course Materials. Essays are submitted two weeks after the end of each course, so those studying for multiple weeks need to plan their time accordingly. There is an evaluation fee of £75 per essay. 

For more information about writing essays see Evaluation and Academic Credit. 

Certificate of attendance 

A certificate of attendance will be sent to you electronically after the programme.