Monstrous Criminals and Esoteric Detectives in Dracula and The Beetle

Abstract

Crime fiction counts with a wide readership and an already established status within academia. However, scholars do not seem to agree on a specific origin and definition that clearly distinguishes between detective fiction, hardboiled novels and sensation novels. In fact, despite previous restrictive tendencies, crime fiction criticism is now broadening the spectrum and applying a noir lens to a much wider range of works. Following this idea, the present article analyses the common roots of crime fiction and gothic fiction. In fact, a close study of Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Richard Marsh’s The Beetle reveals how these gothic narratives par excellence already present the prototype of what will become the figures of the criminal and the detective. Moreover, both stories support the superiority of reason and civilization against the threat posed by the arrival in London of Dracula and The Beetle. This article proves that crime fiction and gothic fiction cannot be completely dissociated from each other, since fin de sie?cle gothic detectives also privileged technological and scientific advances over superstition in their quest for cataloguing, persecuting, and containing the monstrous criminal.