The Pale Blue Eye

Mystery fiction is a loosely-defined term. 1.It is often used by Dime Mystery, which started out as an ordinary crime fiction magazine but switched... to "weird menace" during the latter part of 1933. An early work of modern mystery fiction, Das Fräulein von Scuderi by E.T.A. Hoffmann , was an influence on The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe . Wilkie Collins' epistolary novel The Woman in White was published in 1860, while The Moonstone , is often thought to be his masterpiece. In 1887 Arthur Conan Doyle introduced Sherlock Holmes, whose mysteries are said to have been singularly responsible for the huge popularity in this genre. The genre began to expand near the turn of century with the development of dime novels and pulp magazines. Books were especially helpful to the genre with many authors writing in the genre in the 1920s. An important contribution to mystery fiction in the 1920s was the development of the juvenile mystery by Edward Stratemeyer. Stratemeyer originally developed and wrote the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mysteries written under the Franklin W.
more

Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but... rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical, cinematic or musical work. Fiction contrasts with non-fiction, which deals exclusively with factual events, descriptions, observations, etc. . Realistic fiction, although untrue, could actually happen. Some events, people, and places may even be real. This is termed "faction". It can be possible that in the future imagined events could physically happen. For example, Jules Verne's novel From The Earth To The Moon, which at that time was just a product of his rich imagination, was proven possible in 1969, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the Moon, and the team returned safely to Earth. Realistic fiction strives to make the reader feel as if they're reading something that is actually happening—something that though not real, is described in a believable way that helps the reader make a picture as if it were an actual event.
more

Detective fiction is a sub-genre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator , either professional or amateur, investigates a... crime, often murder. Some scholars have suggested that some ancient and religious texts bear similarities to what would later be called detective fiction. In the Old Testament story of Susanna and the Elders , the story told by two witnesses breaks down when Daniel cross-examines them. The author Julian Symons has commented on writers who see this as a detective story, arguing that "those who search for fragments of detection in the Bible and Herodotus are looking only for puzzles" and that these puzzles are not detective stories. In the play Oedipus Rex by Ancient Greek playwright Sophocles, the title character discovers the truth about his origins after questioning various witnesses.
more