English Faculty Work

Title

A Sisterhood of Sleuths: The Gothic Heroine, the Girl Detective, and their Readers

Document Type

Book Chapter

Publication Date

2014

Publication Title

A Companion to American Gothic

DOI

10.1002/9781118608395.ch16

Abstract

In many ways, the earliest American girl detectives of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries bear a family resemblance to their predecessors, the young heroines of late eighteenth‐ and early nineteenth‐century Gothic. As girls and young women of action, courage, and curiosity, these detectives, both amateur and professional, dare to explore gothic spaces prohibited to them, often uncovering secrets crucial to their own future well‐being and that of their readers. Their insistence on seeing what they are forbidden to see models the behavior of young female readers, whose reading often enacts a similar kind of illicit seeing.

First Page

201

Last Page

210

Link Out URL

https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118608395.ch16

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