The gentleman detective is a type of fictional character. He (or, less commonly, she) has long been a staple of crime fiction, particularly in detective novels and short stories set in Britain in the Golden Age. The heroes of these adventures are typically both gentlemen by conduct and also members of the British gentry. The literary heroes being in opposition to professional police force detectives from the working classes.
Gentlemen detectives include amateurs, private detectives and professional policemen. They are always well educated, frequently have unusual or eccentric hobbies, and are commonly found in their natural environment, an English country house. This type of British detective forms a contrast to the less cerebral and more 'hard boiled' style of hero in American crime fiction. See the history of American hardboiled fiction.
Read more about Gentleman Detective: Early Examples, Gentlemen Detectives From The Golden Age, Modern Examples, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words gentleman and/or detective:
“When Prince William [later King William IV] was at Cork in 1787, an old officer ... dined with him, and happened to say he had been forty years in the service. The Prince with a sneer asked what he had learnt in those forty years. The old gentleman justly offended, said, “Sir, I have learnt, when I am no longer fit to fight, to make as good a retreat as I can” —and walked out of the room.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“I’ve always credited the private detective with a high degree of omniscience. Or is that only true in rental fiction?”
—John Paxton (1911–1985)