--- JIM DOHERTY <
jimdohertyjr@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hard-boiled wasn't an evolution from Holmes,
Poirot,
> Lord Peter, etc. to Spade, the Op, Marlowe, etc.
It
> was a reaction to (and to some degree
AGAINST)
> Holmes
> and the rest of the traditionalists. To say
that
> Holmes was "hard-boiled for his era" is simply
to
> misread the entire history of crime
fiction.
I agree with Jim here. Most academics, for whatever it's
worth, argue that h-b evolved more from frontier fiction (JF
Cooper and westerns) than from Holmes or Nick Carter
(although Holmes and Nick Carter certainly aren't irrelevant
figures in the discussion). With the closing of the American
frontier, new areas were needed for adventure, and the
lawless Prohibition-era American cities seemed perfect.
G.
===== George C. Upper III, Editor The Lightning Bell Poetry
Journal http://www.lightningbell.org/
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