Ambivalent gentleman-thieves and ‘the Dutch Conan Doyle’: British-based detective fiction in the Netherlands at the start of the twentieth century

This article explores the content and reception of two kinds of British-based detective fiction that were widely-read in the Netherlands at the start of the twentieth century: serialized international pulp fiction (the Lord Lister series) on the one hand, and domestic novels (from the Dutch writer Ivans) on the other. The Lord Lister series was generally regarded as the lowest part of popular culture and as very dangerous because the ambivalent ‘gentleman-thief’ Lord Lister, the criminal hero of the series, could influence young people to confuse right and wrong. The novels by the popular Dutc... Mehr ...