‘Murder Most Foul’: The Origins and Evolution of the Detective in Fiction

Join us for a fascinating zoom in which Professor Alan Downie, who for many years taught a detective story course to undergraduates at Goldsmiths, will trace the development of the detective story from its earliest beginnings to its current position as the most popular genre among book buyers in the UK.

In this talk Alan Downie, Emeritus Professor of English, will explain the importance of the detective in the origins and evolution of the detective story from Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, and Dorothy L. Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey via ‘hard-boiled’ police men like Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe to more recent police detectives such as Morse and Rebus. 

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