Fear and Clothing - Dress in English Detective Fiction between First Second World Wars

Through analyzing dress in detective fiction, Fear and Clothing reveals a cultural history of identity affected by the social upheaval caused by war. In-depth analysis of 280 interwar publications by a comprehensive range of writers reveals readership''s anxieties and fears about performance of class, gender, and race and how they changed over that period. Although read and written by both men and women, detective fiction was deemed at that time a masculine and high-status entertainment. However the literature demonstrates an admiration and acceptance of the woman''s identity, performed during the Great War, and continuing throughout the interwar period, as girl pal and female gentleman.In chapters that explore age, character, class, masculinity, performative womanhood and race, Jane Custance Baker exposes how dress was a status marker to both male and female readers. Made anxious by social change brought about by war, dress in detective fiction reveals a set of signs to be read, digested, and possibly employed to model the individual reader''s personal dress choices.>

Product details

• Authors: Jane Custance Baker, BAKER JANE CUSTANCE, Baker Jane Custance Baker
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 30.06.2022
• EAN: 9781350240308
• ISBN: 978-1-350-24030-8
• No. of pages: 264
• Dimensions: 158 mm x 236 mm x 20 mm
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Interior design, design; England, Social & cultural history, DESIGN / Fashion & Accessories, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, DESIGN / History & Criticism, LITERARY CRITICISM / Mystery & Detective, Fashion & society, history of design, Early 20th century c 1900 to c 1950, Literary studies: general, Society and culture: general, Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers