Arguing the Case for Welsh Crime Fiction
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[Dis]solving Genres: Arguing the case for Welsh Crime Fiction Catherine Phelps B.A. Hons (University of Glamorgan), M.A. (Cardiff University) A Thesis Submitted in Candidature for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Cardiff University 2013 Table of Contents Summary i Acknowledgements ii Introduction……………………………………………………………………….................1 Chapter I: The English Imperial Thriller…………………………………………………18 Chapter II: The Emergence of Welsh Crime Fiction…………………………………….53 Chapter III: Socialist Crime Fiction……………………………………………………….91 Chapter IV: Men and Crime……………………………………………………………...122 Chapter V: Women and Crime…………………………………………………………...156 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………….192 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………….195 i Summary Walter Benjamin’s suggestion that great literary works not only add to canonical literature but also ‘dissolve’ genres may not seem apt in an examination of crime fiction, a genre noted for its rigidity and structured form. Though much of this mass-marketed, populist fiction cannot be perceived as great literature, nonetheless, some do work to dissolve genres, to re- shape them to different ends. This is especially true of Welsh crime fiction written in English. This thesis posits that there is a wealth of undiscovered Welsh crime fiction written in English and that those neglected works are necessary to the study of both crime fiction and Welsh writing in English. Central to this argument is my assertion that Welsh crime fiction (as it will henceforth be referred as) is a separate genre that contains its own specific tropes and paradigms, markers that are indicative of a certain Welsh cultural identity. As this study also acts as a survey of a previously unexamined area, of necessity, the works under question are the product of a extensive period: from the late-nineteenth century to the present day. While the chapters are arranged thematically, I have also tried to keep a sense of a chronological order with a sense of authors writing against or responding too previous generations of crime writers. In this manner, a tradition can be seen to be forming, one which re-imagines Welsh identity over this protracted period. As this literature springs from a nation that has frequently been defined as ‘other’, the Introduction starts with an examination of the so-called Blue Books and how they came to define the Welsh character for those outside Wales. Following this, Chapter I discusses how English crime writers absorbed these discourses and played out their ensuing anxieties in their work. Chapter II then explores an emergent Welsh crime fiction, one which both mimics and subverts anglocentric paradigms. This subversion is also played out in socialist crime fiction, the focus of Chapter III. Interestingly, these re-workings and re-imaginings of anglocentric norms are dealt with in different ways by male and female authors so Chapters IV and V will deal with male and female appropriations of genre respectively. This thesis concludes by asserting that Welsh identity is influential in forming a new genre, one that takes a rigid and hierarchical structure and adapts it to its own ends. 1 Introduction The evidence given me of the immoral character of the people, with a few exceptions, tells the same tale. The Welsh are peculiarly exempt from the guilt of great crimes. There are few districts in Europe where murders, burglaries, personal violence, rapes, forgeries, or any felonies on a large scale are so rare. On the other hand, there are perhaps, few countries where the standard of minor morals is lower. Petty thefts, lying, cozening, every species of chicanery, drunkenness (where the means exist), and idleness, prevail to a great extent among the least educated part of the community, who scarcely regard them in the light of sins.1 In 1846, concern regarding the education of the labouring classes in Wales led the Welsh- born MP for Coventry, William Williams, to propose a government inquiry. The ensuing report, or to give it its full title, Reports of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of Education in Wales (1847), was a damning indictment of the education available for impoverished Welsh children. Yet the report made clear that the commissioners had other concerns. Chartism had made great inroads in Wales in the 1830s and 40s, while the Rebecca Riots of the same period had done much to unsettle authority. The Reports, or as they became known due to the colour of their binding, the Blue Books, also commented on the national moral character, possibly to ascertain the roots of the natives’ rebellious nature. Indeed, the commissioners encountered much sympathy from those they questioned for the rioters of recent years. Nonetheless, they concluded that the Welsh seemed to lack the capacity for ‘great crimes’. Other crimes such as drunkenness were a common complaint from the commissioners - even schoolmasters were described as frequently intoxicated - so it would seem that the Welsh did indulge in nefarious activities, albeit the petty vices. Perhaps it is the commonly-held view, perpetuated by the commissioners, that the Welsh were too idle or drunk to commit serious crime, which may account in part for the absence of Welsh-authored crime fiction, or of the use of Wales as a setting for such fiction. Traditionally, Wales has been seen as a bucolic place of safety by English writers, an idea 1 Reports of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of Education in Wales (London: William Clowes and Sons, 1848), p. 294. 2 that I explore more fully in Chapter I where I also consider how later English writers start to use Wales as a setting for crime. Even the Blue Books’ commissioners reinforce this notion of Wales as a haven, but, instead of solely believing this to be the result of a rural simplicity, they also insinuate that the Welsh lack the necessary vigour to commit major crimes. These absent crimes: violence, fraud and, to a much lesser degree, murder, were ones that were of interest in the 1840s,2 a decade in which Edgar Allan Poe writes his three C. Auguste Dupin stories, which Stephen Knight posits as the first detective fiction.3 This perceived lack of crime in Wales would not suggest it as a site in these emergent crime narratives. Crime fiction at this time was also often city-based, as evinced by the popular City Mysteries, originated by Eugène Sue but soon taken up by other writers.4 During this period, Wales lacked a famous urban centre in which to set one of these mysteries. And, as the central protagonists of these mysteries were often aristocratic, the commonly-held but mistaken view that Wales lacked a gentry class or any form of class mobility, also prevented Welsh characters from making much of a mark on these early crime fictions.5 This is a notion that also permeates the Blue Books. As one of the commissioners, R. R. W. Lingen, remarks, ‘[t]hey are never masters […] the Welsh element is never found at the top of the social scale, nor in its own body does it exhibit much variety of gradation.’6 This conviction may explain why, when Wales did appear in English crime fiction, the local people were generally marginalised and silenced, often placed as lowly rural folk for local colour and little else. 2 See Heather Worthington’s Key Concepts in Crime Fiction (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), pp. 11-13 for an examination of the changing nature of crime in fiction over time. 3 Stephen Knight, Crime Fiction 1800-2000: Detection, Death, Diversity (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 25. 4 Eugène Sue’s Les Mystères de Paris was originally published as a weekly serial in Le Journal des Débats in 1842. Such was their popularity that they were published as a novel a year later. The detection-free novel spawned a host of imitations set in a variety of cities. For an in-depth analysis of this particular genre, please refer to Stephen Knight’s The Mysteries of the Cities (North Carolina: MacFarland, 2011). 5 In his essay, ‘A Tale of Three Cities: Megalopolitan Mysteries of the 1840s’, Stephen Knight points out how Paul Féval’s Les Mystères de Londres features a Welsh girl as a protagonist whilst drawing attention to the unlikelihood of her being named Diana Stewart. Crime Fiction in the City: Capital Crimes (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2013), pp. 124-137. 6 Reports of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of Education in Wales, p. 4. 3 This thesis, however, challenges the concept of Wales as a haven from crime, in fiction at least, and hopes to bring to attention some neglected and forgotten crime fiction by Welsh authors or those set in Wales. It offers not only a survey of crime fiction from Wales, but also argues that such crime fiction is a separate sub-genre with specific paradigms and tropes. But in order to do so, first it is necessary to define what is meant by the term ‘crime fiction’. Crime and punishment have long appeared in print, from the biblical depiction of the first murder of Abel by Cain or Rhiannon’s penance for the suspected murder of her child in the Mabinogion, but it is the shift in emphasis from crime and subsequent punishment to the detective processes used to solve the crime that is considered pivotal to the development of crime fiction as it is currently understood. Crime writers and literary critics have been defining and redefining crime fiction for many decades. W. H. Auden provided an influential definition in his essay, ‘The Guilty Vicarage’ (1948). Simply put, Auden argued that the key events must be: ‘a murder occurs: many are suspected; all but one suspect, who is the murderer, are eliminated; the murderer is either arrested or dies’.7 However, as Julian Symons points out in his seminal work, Bloody Murder (1972), these definitions supplied by Auden and other fellow crime writers, such as R.