Early French detective fiction: self-identification paths

Abstract

This article focuses on the early period of French detective fiction (1860s), when the “roman policier” notion has not yet been formulated (In use was the notions “courtroom novel”, i.e. “roman judiciaire”). Émile Gaboriau acted as the founder of this genre through his series of novels about Monsieur Lecoq [starting with the novel – “The Lerouge Case” (“L’Affaire Lerouge”, 1865)]. His novels incorporate the criminal narrative features and social, psychological, historical, and political constructs. The author of the article analyses little-known literary works of the similar theme, written in the same period and far less known, such as the novels: “The Drama of the Rue de la Paix» (“Le Drame de la Rue de la Paix”) by Louis Marc Adolphe Belot and “The Crime Factory!” (“La Fabrique de crimes!”) by Paul Henri Corentin Féval (both written in 1866), as well as the stories: “The Black Pearl” (“La Perle noire”) by Victorien Sardou, 1861 and “The Killer of Albertine Renouf” (“Le Meurtrier d’Albertine Renouf. Les Derniers jours de Don Juan”) by Henri Laurent Rivière, 1865. All of them are indicative of the increased interest in criminal plots among the readership of the 1860s and, in a varying degree, have laid the basis for the new genre paradigmatics (crime, investigation process, investigating agency, interaction between a professional detective and an amateur one, wrong and right crime versions, etc.). The author of the article reach a conclusion that the activation of the description by the authors of the plot of Edgar Allan Poe’s canonical short story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” is combined with solely “feuilletonistic” narrative resources (including melodramatic ones) were extensively used in the detective fiction, and the extremes of fashion for criminal plots were exposed to parody in Belot and Féval’s works.