A Counter-History of Crime Fiction takes a new look at the evolution of crime fiction, drawing on material from the Middle Ages up to the early Twentieth century, when the
genre was theoretically defined as detective fiction. Considering 'criminography' as a system of inter-related, even incestuous, sub-genres, Maurizio Ascari explores the connections
between modes of literature such as revenge tragedies and providential fictions, the gothic and the ghost story, urban mysteries and anarchist fiction, while taking into account the
influence of pseudo-sciences such as mesmerism and criminal anthropology.
