TheBlueprint
Designing A Line Of Thinking
Spies Through The Ages
Hello there, you might be reading this article either because you take interest in books, movies, and/or tv shows about spies or detectives and you want to know about it or you simply because you feel like it is interesting. As you may or may not know, being a spy and being a detective are not the same. And yet, most of the time spies and detectives work towards having a peaceful and harmonious world but a spy is usually a person who works for the government or any other organization by secretly obtaining information about the enemy while a detective is a person whose primary job is to investigate and solve a crime. So, without further ado, we shall begin with the origins of these genres.
Spy fiction
The first reference to a spy was “The Spy: A Tale of The Neutral Ground” written by James Fenimore Cooper in 1821. The setting of the book is during the American revolution. But it was the second world war that kickstarted the new wave of spy films and novels, including the books written by the first major spy novelist Helen MacInnes. Her first book was published in 1939, the name of this book is “Above Suspicion”. This novel follows the journey of an anti-Nazi husband and wife spy team. The cold war was the next global conflict that authors could use as a setting. The prominent authors during this time were Ian Fleming (author of the James bond series), John Le Carré (author of Call for the Dead), and Frederick Forsyth (author of The Day of the Jackal). In the 21st century, more novels/films/shows have their spies use various gadgets and gismos that make being a spy so much cooler than it already was. Before closing this section of the article, I would like to mention this one author who was a former mi5 boss, Dame Stella Remington, who worked in intelligence operations way before they started writing.
Detective Fiction
Like spy fiction, detective fiction also came about in the 19th century. To be more specific this genre started getting recognition in the second half of the 19th century, the genre being established at the same time as legal trials. Previously, “detection” was not necessary and the monarch made the decision of whether someone was guilty or not. However, after the fall of the monarchy, people were not able to make necessary decisions on who was guilty and who was not, hence a system was created to help make such tough decisions. Thus, the need for investigating and detection came about to collect evidence so that the persecutor can make their verdict. Detective fiction made its first appearance in Edgar Allan Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin series (In the 1840s). The next few pieces of detective fiction were published in the (late 19th century to the early 20th century) with novels by Willkie Collins, Arthur Conan Doyle, and multiple others. Many of the detectives were highly influenced by Auguste Dupin. In “A Study in Scarlet,” Dr. Watson compares Sherlock to Auguste Dupin. The 1930s were known as the Golden age of detective fiction; this was also the period when Agatha Christie rose to fame. The 1940s is the era of unusual detectives (also known as the Hardboiled era). It is around this time that writers like Raymond Chandler made a mark with the readers. In the 21st century, people mostly concentrated on spy fiction rather than detective fiction. What I mean is, there were a few books/movies/shows related to people investigating crime and taking on the job of the detective. That, however, cannot exactly be deemed as an era of amazing work related to fascinating detectives.
~R. Padmalakshmi