Photography as a Medium of Suspicion in Detective and Mystery Fiction

Abstract

Since its invention in 1839, photography has raised controversial issues of authenticity and suspicion due to its perceived ambiguous position between science and the supernatural. In the Victorian age “the pencil of nature” (Francis Talbot, 1844) was strongly acclaimed for its ability to reveal the unseen world in astonishing detail, and consequently changed ideas of evidence and truth. The contrasting nature of photography had a significant influence on the literary production of the time, initially with realism, and then with the genres of detective and mystery fiction. Walter Benjamin linked the emergence of the detective story with the development of modern criminology and the invention of the camera, which became an important forensic instrument for evidence and detection. Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, in particular, came to exemplify the technological medium through his unique visual ability. However, photography was simultaneously experienced as an uncanny phenomenon associated with the occult and the supernatural, becoming, in this way, a popular feature of mystery fiction. In The Camera Fiend (E. W. Hornung, 1911), for instance, a deep feeling of suspicion is conveyed through the figure of the photographer, who is obsessed with the idea of capturing the human soul. While the dual roles of photography in forensic science and the spiritualist movement may appear contradictory—one engaged in recording reality, the other in disguising it—it is precisely this ambiguity that makes photography a medium of suspicion, providing the ideal context for reflecting and understanding the Victorians’ deepest fears.