The Magic Detective. Peter Grant ("Rivers of London") as Opposed to Sherlock Holmes ("A Scandal in Bohemia") (PDF)

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2014 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,1, University of Bonn (Institut für Anglistik, Amerikanistik und Keltologie), language: English, abstract: This paper foremost deals with the question in which ways the magic detective Peter Grant is differentiated from the non-magic detective, that is to say Sherlock Holmes, and in which ways the world of the protagonist is modified by the supernatural. Representatives for the two different approaches will be "A Scandal in Bohemia" (first published in 1891) as well as "A Study in Scarlet" (first published in 1887) by Arthur Conan Doyle and Ben Aaronovitch's "Rivers of London". Even though there are many iconic detectives that could have served the purpose, Sherlock Holmes was chosen as he is something like a patron saint of detective fiction. Priestman states on that matter that "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes is the supreme 'character' of nineteenth-century detective fiction" (Detective Fiction 74). "A Scandal in Bohemia" was chosen here as it features a female culprit and it will be interesting to set the female role as presented in the short story against the one in the more recent novel by Aaronovitch. However, when referring to Sherlock Holmes, "A Study in Scarlet" will also be accounted for as this is the story where Watson first meets the legendary sleuth and thus the reader is described a lot of mannerisms of his through the eyes of the narrator. Peter Grant's story was selected as there is barely another novel at the time which features the supernatural next to the criminal in such a striking pattern. This assumption was made due to the fact that Peter Grant is a wizard and a police constable at the same time. Therefore it will be interesting to explore how this fact influences him and the world he lives in and also the distinction between the Victorian and the postmodern approach.