MYSTERY STORIES resolve themselves into many types or classes, of which the principal are riddle stories, ghost stories and detective stories. The third of these classes deserves to be classed as a separate branch of fiction from the very nature of its construction. By his terms of reference, the author is obliged to get the main action of the book already over in the first few chapters. This action is (apparently at least) a crime; and the in terest of the book lies in determining the circumstances, the methods and the motives of it. The reader is invited to watch the investigation, and to match his wits against the author by attempting to unravel the mystery pari passu with the detective hero. Numerous modern novels of adventure wear the air of detec tive stories, and are often erroneously classed as such : e.g., those of John Buchan and of "Sapper." But the formula of the detective story demands more than mystification; it demands an initial fait accompli, the unravelling of which is the principal interest of the book.
It is difficult to suppose that the mystery story has any literary antecedents earlier than the 19th century. The Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophocles would be a detective story if the reader did not know the plot beforehand, but this condition was not realized when the play was produced. The art seems to have developed almost simultaneously in France and in the United States of America, suggested perhaps by that modern organization of the police system which the Industrial Revolution brought with it and by the publication of the Memoires of the celebrated criminal detective Vidocq. Emile Gaboriau was certainly the first writer who introduced the European public to the whole notion of "clues," "deduction," and the detective method generally. In the United States the happy genius of Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49) gave birth to the detective story as it did to the short story itself. Poe achieved what is probably a unique distinction, that of hav ing solved a real police mystery under the guise of fiction and having been proved right by subsequent confessions. "The Mys tery of Marie Roget" gives a true account of what happened in the case of Mary Cecilia Rogers (1842), though the scene has been transferred from New York to Paris. Yet the develop
ment of the art belongs to England. Few detective stories since produced in the United States have had any considerable public in Europe ; and although in our own day Gaston Leroux has re vived the tradition of Gaboriau in The Mystery of the Yellow Room, he suffers, like Gaboriau himself, from grave limitations of constructive power.
One great detective achievement stands out in the Middle Vic torian p€riod, The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins (1824-89). His prolixity is intolerable to the modern reader, but the ingenuity of his work is beyond cavil. Probably, however, more impetus was given to this movement in fiction by a story which is not really a detective story at all—Dickens' Mystery of Edwin Drood. Since the author died without completing the book, or even committing the true solution to writing, the ingenuity of critics was naturally challenged; four attempted solutions appeared between 1870 'See Archiv fur Religionswiss. (1906), article by Salomon Reinach.
and 188o, and there has been, since then, a whole literature on the subject, to which Andrew Lang contributed (see "Edwin Charles," Keys to the Drood Mystery, 1908). It was almost before the scent of that trail had grown cold that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle standardized the art and left his permanent impress upon it by the appearance of the Sherlock Holmes stories.
These belong to the world of 1890-1900; The Hound of the Bas kervilles is the only truly successful revival that Sir Arthur has achieved during the present century, although he has been obliged repeatedly to bring his hero back to his triumphs in order to satisfy the popular demand. The principal importance of his con tribution to detective fiction lies in his concentration of interest upon the personality of the detective. Lecoq, Dupin and Sergeant Cuff never won the heart of the public ; but Sherlock Holmes became, almost at once, a figure of international notoriety; he has been parodied unceasingly, and taken a permanent place in the language ; and the detectives who have followed him—Trent, Father Brown, Hanaud, Poirot, etc.—are attempts to vary him which do not quite succeed in replacing him.