Mean Streets and English Gardens

Abstract

It has often been argued that detective fiction is an intrinsically conservative form. At the narrative’s inevitable, carefully foreshadowed conclusion, the mysteries are solved, the elements of fear, suspicion and doubt are banished, order is restored: readers come to detective fiction expecting to find reassurance, to have their formal and ideological expectations confirmed. As Franco Moretti has said: One reads only with the purpose of remaining as one already is: innocent. Detective fiction owes its success to the fact that it teaches nothing.1 KeywordsDetective NovelistMoral LegitimacyLiterary AchievementSocial ConscienceWhite ButterflyThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.