Of Women, Wine and Salt: Revisioning the Home in Harriet Prescott Spofford’s Detective Fiction
Although Harriet Prescott Spofford appears to have given up the genre of detective fiction in the late 1860s, she actually used it as the foundation for works in which suspense, sudden revelations and unexpected final twists serve her investigation of various social ills, especially those affecting...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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European Association for American Studies
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| Series: | European Journal of American Studies |
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| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/15021 |
| Summary: | Although Harriet Prescott Spofford appears to have given up the genre of detective fiction in the late 1860s, she actually used it as the foundation for works in which suspense, sudden revelations and unexpected final twists serve her investigation of various social ills, especially those affecting the place and condition of women in the society of her times. This paper examines three detective stories written by Spofford between 1859 and 1868 in an attempt to retrace the birth and development of her chief detective figure, from the wine cellar in which he is figuratively born to the dark depths of the cellar where he is left stranded at the end of the last tale. The patterns of convergence that can be traced between these three tales highlight Spofford’s vision of the home as a highly unstable ground whose shaky foundations are best reflected through the metaphor of the cellar. |
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| ISSN: | 1991-9336 |