I just read The Unknown Weapon...
Jul. 18th, 2013 09:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
potentiality_26By Andrew Forrester.
It was published in 1864 and is one of the stories that helped shape the mystery genre into what it was when Arthur Conan Doyle came on the scene. In fact, the collection I read it from called it "the first great tale of the Metropolitan Police (formed 1829) and perhaps the first modern detective novel."
This background given, the detective is a woman. A woman employed as a detective by the Metropolitan Police in a story written 1864. According to Wikipedia, by the way, "the first 'Woman Detective Constable' was appointed in 1973."
She's independent, crafty, and gently sarcastic- an all around awesome lady. It isn't until page 25 that it's even made clear that she is a woman. It's when she remarks that the rural police constable she's been questioning about his murder investigation probably never realized who she was because he couldn't get his head around the idea of a police officer in a skirt. That this statement wouldn't be particularly out of place in a story narrated by a woman today makes me incredibly sad.
I don't know if Mr. Forrester thought lady detectives were right around the corner when he wrote The Unknown Weapon and the other stories featuring this protagonist, or if he just wanted a heroine for his story and didn't care how probable it was, but I like to think he'd be sad too.
It was published in 1864 and is one of the stories that helped shape the mystery genre into what it was when Arthur Conan Doyle came on the scene. In fact, the collection I read it from called it "the first great tale of the Metropolitan Police (formed 1829) and perhaps the first modern detective novel."
This background given, the detective is a woman. A woman employed as a detective by the Metropolitan Police in a story written 1864. According to Wikipedia, by the way, "the first 'Woman Detective Constable' was appointed in 1973."
She's independent, crafty, and gently sarcastic- an all around awesome lady. It isn't until page 25 that it's even made clear that she is a woman. It's when she remarks that the rural police constable she's been questioning about his murder investigation probably never realized who she was because he couldn't get his head around the idea of a police officer in a skirt. That this statement wouldn't be particularly out of place in a story narrated by a woman today makes me incredibly sad.
I don't know if Mr. Forrester thought lady detectives were right around the corner when he wrote The Unknown Weapon and the other stories featuring this protagonist, or if he just wanted a heroine for his story and didn't care how probable it was, but I like to think he'd be sad too.
