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Railway, Mobility, and Horror: Conan Doyle’s Mystery and Detective Stories
Ming-fong Wang
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DOI:10.17265/2159-5836/2015.08.001
MingDao University, Changhua, Taiwan
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote many mystery and detective stories from 1890s to 1910s, years saw the advancement of powerful modern science and technology, especially inventions of transportation means or machines that accelerate mobility power in late-Victorian and Edwardian society. In some of these mystery or detective stories especially featuring the well-known sleuth Sherlock Holmes, Doyle tended to integrate an early subject’s experience of shrunken space and reduced time into an unknown fear by delineating his characters who perceive horror and nervousness while facing or riding on a railway transportation, including mainly the steam railway in mysterious tales like “The Lost Special” and “The Man with the Watches” as well as in detective stories like “The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb”, “The Adventure of Bruce-Partington Plan”, “Valley of Fear” and several others. How can this spatiotemporal mobility be connected to mysterious affairs which lead Doyle’s quasi-detective characters and police power to spring into investigative action? Railway, mobility, and horror are woven together into a driving force that facilitates our geographical and forensic exploration of Doyle’s stories.
Conan Doyle, detective, railway, mobility, horror
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