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The Devil Himself Villainy in Detective Fiction and Film
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Stacy Gillis, Philippa Gates
ISBN: 0-313-31655-4
ISBN-13: 978-0-313-31655-5
232 pages
Praeger Publishers
Publication: 10/30/2001
List Price: $110.95 (UK Sterling Price: £76.95)
Availability: Print on demand
Media Type: Hardcover
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects:
Description: This study of the villain in detective fiction and film examines such questions as what the villains reflect about the heroes, what they reflect about society, and what defines villainous activity. The texts discussed span the end of the 18th through the 20th century and range from Charles Brockden Brown's Weiland (1798) to the film Se7en (1995). As the villains reflect the changing ethics of society, the shift in such nebulous moral boundaries can be traced through the changing depictions of these dark characters. Correspondingly, essays address issues of gender, genre, race, and class. In addition to Weiland and Se7en, books and films discussed include Dickens's Bleak House, Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White, the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the films of Alfred Hitchcock, the James Bond novels and films, the novels of P.D. James, Ruth Rendell, and Dorothy Sayers, A. S. Byatt's Possession, Patricia Conrwall's Scarpetta mysteries, Margaret Atwood's Robber Bride, and the movie The Usual Suspects.

As one of the most successful literary genres, detective fiction appeals to a wide audience. This study will interest scholars of 19th and 20th century literature, of film, and of popular culture. Each chapter concludes with a select bibliography and filmography, where applicable.
Table of Contents:
  • The Devil Himself: An Introduction by Stacy Gillis
    Vicarious Villainy and the Burden of Narrative Guilt by Jan-Melissa Schramm
    Why Does Hortense Walk Barefoot Through the Grass?: Ambivalent Hierarchies of Intimacy in Bleak House by Janet Levison
    From "Foreign Perculiarities" to "Fatal Resemblance": Detecting Villainy in The Women in White by Natalka Freeland
    The Female Moriarty: The Arch-Villainess in Victorian Popular Fiction by Chris Willis
    Philanthropies, Villainies and "The Speckled Band": The Conflict of the Imperial and the Anti-Imperial in Arthur Conan Doyle's Story and Play by Catherine Wynne
    The Political Appeal of Fu Manchu by Peter Christensen
    Case Closed: Scapegoating in British Women's Wartime Detective Fiction by Kristine Miller
    Shadows and Doubts: Hitchcock, Genre and Villainy by Rowland Hughes
    Why Don't They Just Shoot Him?: The Bond Villains and Cold War Heroism by Deborah Banner
    Gothic Villainy: P.D. James and the Horror of Modernity/Ruth Rendell and the Utopian Sublime by Susan Rowland
    Villainy and the Life of the Mind in Sayers and Byatt by Helen Taylor
    Alone and Vulnerable in the Terrible Dream: Contagion and Technology in the Early Scarpetta Novels by Gerard Collins
    The Devil Herself? Fantasy, Female Identity, and the Villainess Fatale in Margaret Atwood's The Robber Bride by Ann Heilmann
    Getting Away with It: Villainy in The Usual Suspects and Se7en by Philippa Gates
    Whoever Fights Monsters: Serial Killers, the FBI and America's Last Frontier by Linnie Blake
About the Author: STACY GILLIS teaches at the University of Exeter.

PHILIPPA GATES is a doctoral candidate in Film Studies at the University of Exeter.
LCC Class: 791
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