Recollections of a Detective Police Officer by "Waters" (William Russell) is listed in Howard Haycraft's book Murder for Pleasure: The Life and Times of the Detective Story as "the first English detective yellow-back". I can't find out about this book or its author except that the book was published in 1856. It is available to read online, so I'm exploring it to delve more into the history of mystery fiction.
Its style is old-fashioned, as one would expect, but not at all difficult to read or off-putting. It puts one quite nicely in the mind of its place and time. It maintains my interest, and I can understand why this type of book was so popular in its day.
The picture at the top of the post came from Yesterday's Papers.
Posts
What an interesting find!
ReplyDeleteSounds like fun! I have added it to my ebook-reader, for future enjoyment.
ReplyDeletei find it interesting to see how many detective stories there were back then. i think of arthur conan doyle as standing alone. turns out he had some company writing in the detective field, tho i think he was the stand-out.
ReplyDeleteSince I'm a big mystery fan I enjoyed reading this bit from history. I would like to read the book but have trouble reading online. Just not used to it I suspect. I might give this one a try though.
ReplyDeleteDarla
reading online is never my first choice. odd, really, since i like watching movies on the computer. i'm just stuck on printed books, i guess
Delete