Ambivalent gentleman-thieves and ‘the Dutch Conan Doyle’: British-based detective fiction in the Netherlands at the start of the twentieth century

Abstract

This article explores the content and reception of two kinds of British-based detective fiction that were widely-read in the Netherlands at the start of the twentieth century: serialized international pulp fiction (the Lord Lister series) on the one hand, and domestic novels (from the Dutch writer Ivans) on the other. The Lord Lister series was generally regarded as the lowest part of popular culture and as very dangerous because the ambivalent ‘gentleman-thief’ Lord Lister, the criminal hero of the series, could influence young people to confuse right and wrong. The novels by the popular Dutch writer Ivans, ‘the Dutch Conan Doyle’, were received more positively. Ivans, who explicitly positioned himself between ‘low’ and ‘high’ culture, countered the ongoing complaints against popular fiction by offering novels that defended moral and societal norms and strived towards a harmonious balance between human emotions and rational thinking. His attempt to provide a ‘healthier’ and national kind of detective fiction was in line with the wishes of critics who functioned as mediators between contemporary literature and the common reader and were concerned with the social and mental effects of reading too much (imported) popular fiction.

Keywords

• middlebrow
• detective fiction
• pulp
• the Netherlands