What do detective novels tell us about the period in which they were written?

Why did the detective novel become popular in the Victorian era and experience a "golden age" in inter-war Britain? How far has the genre evolved since then? And can historians learn much about the preoccupations of their period by reading this form of literature? 

In this podcast, Professor Jeremy Black sifts through the evidence with The Critic's political editor, Graham Stewart.

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Image: Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson from The Adventure of Silver Blaze, Arthur Conan Doyle, published in The Strand Magazine. (Photo by Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Music: Radetzky March by Human Symphony Orchestra (premiumbeat.com)

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