OTHER CRIME WRITING AUTHORS
There can be little doubt that Conan Doyle. was one of the mostinfluential detective fiction writers in the international history of the genre. The influence of his work is evident in the work of subsequent writers such as:-
- E. W. Hornung
- G. K. Chesterton
- Dorothy L. Sayers
- Agatha Christie
- Ruth Rendell
- Colin Dexter
This influence is also clear in relation to modern crime stories,
such as the CSI series (which featured Sherlock Holmes in one
episode), and even the US medical drama House, which relies on a
central relationship between a character named 'House' (aka Holmes) and
another called 'Wilson' (aka Watson). The BBC's most recent production
of Sherlock
features a 21st century version of the detective and his friend Dr
Watson making use of modern technology who face a very modern enemy in
James Moriarty, who is now a slick-dressing, psychopathic criminal
mastermind with a Dublin accent.
At the same time, it would be a mistake to overlook the ways in which
Conan Doyle's Holmes stories related to the tradition of
detective/crime writing that preceded him. For, by the end of the
ninteenth century a range of writers, including:-
- Edgar Allan Poe
- Charles Dickens
- Wilkie Collins
- Emile Gaboriau
had already begun producing detective stories that themselves were the foundations for what Conan Doyle. was later to create. It was Conan Doyle's great skill to anticipate the importance of this developing trend in later-nineteenth-century fiction, and to understand that writing within the genre of detective fiction offered aspiring writers such as him a rich potential.
