Australian crime fiction has grown from the country's origins as an 18th-century English prison colony. Early stories focused on escaped convicts becoming heroic bush rangers, or how the system mistreated those who were wrongfully convicted. Later came thrillers about wealthy free settlers and lawless gold-seekers, and urban crime fiction, including Fergus Hume's 1887 international best-seller The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, set in Melbourne.
The 1980s saw a surge of private-eye thrillers, popular in a society skeptical of police. Twenty-first century authors have focused on policemen--and increasingly policewomen--and finally indigenous crime narratives. The author explores in detail this rich but little known national subgenre.
By:
Stephen Knight
Imprint: McFarland & Co Inc
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
Spine: 16mm
Weight: 404g
ISBN: 9781476670867
ISBN 10: 1476670862
Pages: 269
Publication Date: 30 May 2018
Recommended Age: From 18 years
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Table of Contents Acknowledgments deleteix Introduction Section 1: Earliest Stories to the First World War, 1818–1914 1.1. Beginnings: Convicts and Bushrangers 1.2. Settler and Squatter Crime Fiction 1.3. Goldfields Crime Stories 1.4. Remembering the Criminal Past 1.5. City Mysteries 1.6. Turn of the Century Crime Fiction Section 2: Across and Between Two Wars, 1915–1945 2.1. Male Authors 2.2. Female Authors 2.3. Overseas and Touristic Crime Fiction Section 3: Towards Independence, 1946–1979 3.1. The American Private-Eye Model 3.2. Other Male Authors 3.3. Female Authors 3.4. Other Voices Section 4: Australia Stands Alone, 1980–1999 4.1. Private Investigators: Male 4.2. Private Investigators: Female 4.3. Police: Male 4.4. Police: Female 4.5. The Crime Novel 4.6. Amateur Detectives 4.7. Psychothrillers 4.8. Indigenous Crime Fiction 4.9. Historical Crime Fiction 4.10. Other Voices Section 5: Patterns of the Present, 2000–2017 5.1. Private Investigators: Male 5.2. Private Investigators: Female 5.3. Police: Male 5.4. Police: Female 5.5. The Crime Novel 5.6. Amateur Detectives 5.7. Psychothrillers 5.8. Indigenous Crime Fiction 5.9. Historical Crime fiction 5.10. Other Voices Bibliography (by Sections) Index
Stephen Knight is a well-known authority on crime fiction and literature through the ages. He has worked at universities in Australia, England and Wales and is a research professor in literature at the University of Melbourne, Australia.
Reviews for Australian Crime Fiction: A 200-Year History
"""This revised edition of Stephen Knight's study of Australian crime fiction first published 21 years ago is right up to the minute...he provides a sweeping, highly informed, academic but eminently readable look at the genre that he argues was long ignored at home due to a combination of traditional canonical assumptions in academia and restrictive publishing deals."" - Steven Carroll, The Age"
