Criminal Genius
Constructing Women of Science in L. T. Meade's Detective Fiction
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 13008442 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Rachel Jane Smillie (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 7 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 143-160 |
| Publication date | 2017-06-08 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Victoriographies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2044-2416 • E-ISSN: 2044-2424 |
| Publisher | Edinburgh University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.3366/vic.2017.0268 |
| OpenAlex | W2623163739 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 9 |
This article explores the construction of the criminal masterminds Madame Koluchy and Madame Sara in L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace's detective series The Brotherhood of the Seven Kings (1899) and The Sorceress of the Strand (1903). Previously overlooked in critical histories of detective fiction, Meade's work has begun to attract interest in recent years. However, studies of both Brotherhood and Sorceress have tended to focus on Koluchy's and Sara's criminality and, as such, have not addressed their significance as women of science. Focusing on Sara's and Koluchy's roles as medical practitioners, this paper reads these women in the context of late nineteenth-century debates on medical orthodoxy and quackery, professionalism, and gender. Approached in this way, Sara's and Koluchy's criminality becomes intrinsically linked to their genius and the professional threat they pose to their detective counterparts who stand as representatives of male institutional science. Sara and Koluchy constitute an uncontainable challenge to male scientific authority and play on anxieties which the narratives fail to assuage. These women are positioned as composite figures who simultaneously embody and interrogate competing sides of the contemporary scientific and medical debate
Art · Context (archaeology · Criminology · Detective fiction · Genius · Literature · Narrative · Orthodoxy · Political science · Quackery · Sociology · Theology · Contemporary Literature and Criticism · Crime and Detective Fiction Studies · Gender Studies · Historical Psychiatry and Medical Practices · History · Law · Medicine · Philosophy
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |