-----Original Message-----
>From: Anthony Dauer <
anthony.dauer@gmail.com>
>
>What is a "proto-mystery / proto-dective"?
A "proto-mystery" is a work of fiction, written before the
advent of the modern mystery genre, which has the themes and
motifs of mystery fiction but is fundamentally about
something other than the mystery and its solution. This
includes Gothics, works like CALEB WILLIAMS and Voltaire's
ZADIG, and the various pre-Poe short stories which included
mystery and detection themes and motifs.
A "proto-detective" is a character in a proto-mystery who
solves a mystery or is instrumental in doing so but is
neither a professional crime-solver (and so not a policeman
or policewoman) nor one by habit or temperament. The leads in
most Proto-Mysteries solve a mystery or mysteries because
they are forced to through various plot complications; when
the mystery is solved they return to their previous position.
So Susan Hopley, the maid in Catherine Crowe's SUSAN HOPLEY
(1841, and another pre-"Rue Morgue" proto-mystery that Poe
was aware of), solves the crime that is tearing apart the
Leesons, the family she serves, but once the crime is solved
and the status quo restores, she returns, happily, to serving
the Leesons.
jess
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