Kenny Matsudo

Matsudo 1

Professor Haas
Writing 37
6 November 2014
The Blooming of the Detective Genre
The Victorian Era was the birthplace of the detective genre. Beginning with Conan Doyles The
Hound of the Baskervilles, the detective genre grew to immense popularity and was able to be
read all around. The detective genres use of a related narrator, and the conditions around the
Victorian Era gave a great possibility to detective writers around. Paired with not only the perfect
setting, the Victorian middle class was the main cause leading to the rise of the detective genre.
According to many different literary scholars, the main reason the detective genre was able to
successfully take off was due to its target audience.
Doyles target audience was the middle class. The middle class was the biggest range in the
social hierarchy at the time, and therefore can have more of an impact. What helped the middle
class become engaged in the story, for example in The Hound of the Baskervilles, was that the
narrator, Dr. Watson was related to the readers (middle class). Watson relates the middle class
due to the fact that when in presence with Mr. Sherlock Holmes, he knows absolutely nothing.
As Sherlock says Well, Watson, what do you make of it? (Loc. 85), he tests both Watson, and
the readers, getting the readers involved as well, to try and come to a conclusion about the cane
left in the house. When Watson gives an answer, Holmes uses that to deny his theory and come
up with one of his own, which turns out to be true. Then, in chapters 8 and 9 of Hound of the
Baskervilles, Watson has his own thoughts. The chapters are written as letters to Holmes from
Watson explaining the events going on. This not only connects the readers to the

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story, but also presents Watson and a middle class, average person. As the story progressed, the reader
becomes more and more involved trying to solve the case as well. He explains his theories to
Watson, but we know that Holmes is way ahead of him. Because of the conventions set for
detective genre, readers are always connected to one of the characters in the story.
For example, one reason that the detective genre was able to succeed was due to society becoming less
agrarian and becoming more technologically advanced. Like Panek mentioned in Doyle, the
passing of the Education Act of 1870 also broadened the reading public (pg.76). This meant that
before the passing of the Education Act of 1870, there were fewer people able to read, therefore
fewer people who were willing to buy a book. Panek also stated that All sorts of technological
innovations, such as electric lights and telephones, began to make life easier in Britain, and life
also became more egalitarian and open (pg.75). The technological advances, such as the electric
lights, allowed people to have time to read at night when no light as available. Innovations such
as the linotype also allowed the printing and distribution of books to become easier.
Detective stories also became a way of relaxing. In The Different Story by Dove, he explains that
The role of the reader is both recreational and intellectual; the reader voluntarily accepts the
limits (agrees to the rules), in order to permit the game to be played. This means that its
something that the middle class liked to do and were not forced to. Unlike having stories
hundreds of pages long that only the upper class had time to read, detective stories were short
and simple, which the middle class had enough time to read. According to Doves The Different
Story, both the crossword puzzle and the detective novel are free of stress, each offers the
reader a task or set of related tasks, both are shaped by convention, and neither has any goal
beyond itself. By this, Dove means that instead of being something that you had to do, the

middle class now could read to relieve stress. They could read in their spare time and still be able
to finish within weeks and not years.
The Victorian era was the prime time to have a detective genre be born. There was crime present with
the police not being able to do anything, there were advances in technology, and there were
different conditions that made the detective genre blossom.

Sources:
Conan Doyle, Arthur. The Hound of the Baskervilles. Sharon, MA: Higher Read, LLC 20143. Kindle eBook.
Online.

Dove, George N. The Different Story. The Reader and the Detective Story. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling
Green State University Popular Press, 1997. PDF File.

Panek, Leroy. Beginnings. An Introduction to the Detective Story. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green
State University Popular Press, 1987. PDF File.

Panek, Leroy. Doyle. An Introduction to the Detective Story. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State
University Popular Press, 1987. PDF File.