Publisher's Synopsis
Sherlock's Men explores the manner in which the nine volumes of Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle construct masculinity over a period of four decades, from 1887 with the publication of A Study in Scarlet through to 1927 and the publication of The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes. This book discusses the ways in which documents of popular culture conveyed paradigms of masculine gender during a key transition in cultural history. - - The Sherlock Holmes narratives address masculinity in a range of contexts: social, historical, legal, literary, institutional, educational, marital, imperial and aesthetic. - - In analysing the stories, the book discusses many elements of and issues concerning masculinity: the idea of the gentleman, the role of reason, the nature of heroism, the ideology of chivalry, the functions of law and punishment, criminality as transgressive masculinity, the function of regulating , policing and investigating cultural institutions and practices, all-male groups such as the school or the army, the imprinting of 'games' or sport ideologies, the use of Holmes to imprint masculinity by such organizations as the Boy Scout movement, male friendship, male-female relationships, the role of ethnicity and race and the representation of international policies in detective fiction, the consequences of imperialism for masculinity, and the crisis of masculinity during these decades. - - The book contends that popular literature, and the genre of detective fiction, played and continue to play crucial role both in advancing ideas about masculinity - a culturally learned construct - and in reflecting cultural changes in attitudes to masculinity.
