Stolen Goods in British Detective Fiction

This book pushes beyond the focus of murder mysteries in British detective fiction to illuminate elements of what is perhaps the next most pertinent subgenre: stories of burglary and theft. Chapters cover work including E. W. Hornung's Raffles stories, Sherlock Holmes's investigation of as well as his own commitment of theft, Agatha Christie's novels, and more. Outside of the thievery itself, Hopkins focuses on the actual stolen items, from jewellery to identity. Examining stolen identities as well as stolen objects helps to bring out the extent to which narratives of theft raise issues of class, gender, and race as well as implicitly posing questions about social justice: who has the right to possess what, and on what grounds?

Lisa Hopkins is Professor Emerita of English at Sheffield Hallam University, UK. She has published widely on Renaissance drama (particularly Shakespeare, Marlowe and Ford), adaptation studies, and more recently crime fiction. She is co-editor of Shakespeare, the journal of the British Shakespeare Association, and of the Arden Guides to Early Modern Drama. Her previous books include Shakespearean Allusion in Crime Fiction: DCI Shakespeare (Palgrave, 2016) and Burial Plots in British Detective Fiction (Palgrave, 2021).