Authors Jess Nevins
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TIL:
- first Western detective stories translated & published in Japan in *1863*--that's pre-Meiji, even!
- first Chinese-written detective stories featuring Western-style detectives starred women as both detectives and criminals were published in 1907--author Lü Simian (!).
Quote: “This case is so complicated that even Sherlock Holmes would feel helpless if it fell into his hands. [Now] it is solved by a woman who returned from abroad for a brief
visit to her hometown. Who is to say that the wisdom of Chinese cannot compete with the Westerners?”
The lead female detective in these stories, Chu Yi, is a fan of Doyle's Holmes stories and asks herself "What would Sherlock Holmes do?" while crime-solving, but succeeds through her use of martial arts and more "Chinese" attributes--China, not the West, solves the crimes.
Author Lü Simian, btw, is this guy: https://t.co/swPvAxr87J . One of the "four greatest modern Chinese historians," also wrote a landmark work of literary theory, and helped cohere Chinese detective fiction with his stories. Bit of a badass.
Holmes was the dominant influence on Chinese detective fiction of the late-Qing & early Republic years, and the biggest star of Chinese detective fiction of those years, Cheng Xiaoqing's Huo Sang, was a spin on Holmes.
- first Western detective stories translated & published in Japan in *1863*--that's pre-Meiji, even!
- first Chinese-written detective stories featuring Western-style detectives starred women as both detectives and criminals were published in 1907--author Lü Simian (!).
Quote: “This case is so complicated that even Sherlock Holmes would feel helpless if it fell into his hands. [Now] it is solved by a woman who returned from abroad for a brief
visit to her hometown. Who is to say that the wisdom of Chinese cannot compete with the Westerners?”
The lead female detective in these stories, Chu Yi, is a fan of Doyle's Holmes stories and asks herself "What would Sherlock Holmes do?" while crime-solving, but succeeds through her use of martial arts and more "Chinese" attributes--China, not the West, solves the crimes.
Author Lü Simian, btw, is this guy: https://t.co/swPvAxr87J . One of the "four greatest modern Chinese historians," also wrote a landmark work of literary theory, and helped cohere Chinese detective fiction with his stories. Bit of a badass.
Holmes was the dominant influence on Chinese detective fiction of the late-Qing & early Republic years, and the biggest star of Chinese detective fiction of those years, Cheng Xiaoqing's Huo Sang, was a spin on Holmes.
Good morning/afternoon/evening! We could all use some diversion today, I think, so let’s talk about a complicated real-life redemption story.
To wit: Billy Jenkins, the Jewish Nazi cowboy.
1/30
“Billy Jenkins” was the man’s stagename. The name he was born with in 1885 was “Erich Rudolf Otto Rosenthal;” his father, a German Jew, was a café owner & variety-show artist. (We don’t know much about his mother). I’ll be calling him “Jenkins,” as that was his chosen name.
2/
Jenkins grew up in Berlin and imbibed deeply of the German fixation with Buffalo Bill and all things Western. After college, in 1910 he left home (he hated his father) and traveled to the American West, where he spent several years learning tricks from every cowboy he met.
3/
In 1919 or 1920 (sources are unclear)—after WW1 ended, anyhow-- he returned to Berlin and went to work as a rider and animal trainer for various German circuses, including the very famous https://t.co/SwKfMahfmI Circus Sarrasani, where he became a star.
4/30
Jenkins was very talented, of course, but a large part of his appeal to German audiences was that he was one of them, a German, who’d gone to the American West, hung out with actual cowboys, and learned how to do everything that they did. And Jenkins loved their adulation.
5/
To wit: Billy Jenkins, the Jewish Nazi cowboy.
1/30
“Billy Jenkins” was the man’s stagename. The name he was born with in 1885 was “Erich Rudolf Otto Rosenthal;” his father, a German Jew, was a café owner & variety-show artist. (We don’t know much about his mother). I’ll be calling him “Jenkins,” as that was his chosen name.
2/
Jenkins grew up in Berlin and imbibed deeply of the German fixation with Buffalo Bill and all things Western. After college, in 1910 he left home (he hated his father) and traveled to the American West, where he spent several years learning tricks from every cowboy he met.
3/
In 1919 or 1920 (sources are unclear)—after WW1 ended, anyhow-- he returned to Berlin and went to work as a rider and animal trainer for various German circuses, including the very famous https://t.co/SwKfMahfmI Circus Sarrasani, where he became a star.
4/30
Jenkins was very talented, of course, but a large part of his appeal to German audiences was that he was one of them, a German, who’d gone to the American West, hung out with actual cowboys, and learned how to do everything that they did. And Jenkins loved their adulation.
5/
Thread!
It's #PublicDomainDay, and as requested by @doctorcomics I am providing a list of the best of the pulp heroes who are now in the public domain. * means the character or text they appear in are prime pulp.
Carlo Aldini:
* Bakterev: https://t.co/QQoSLCNIa4
Black Eagle: https://t.co/QujggV83rX
Brigand: https://t.co/uOs7x9Lvwn
* Sir Ralf Clifford: https://t.co/6QXvegLKPk
Earani: https://t.co/uHGIeecPva
Ebony: https://t.co/C7Jc3j4O44
Fifth Wanderer:
Fresquinho: https://t.co/FGRRM4lEEv
Jerzy Hartman: https://t.co/54aVxZKugb
Valentin Katayev's Stanley Holmes, Sherlock Holmes' nephew (son of Mycroft), who goes to India to stop a revolutionary movement from using a Russian scientist's super-magnet to create world peace.
3/
Aleksandr Beliayev's Professor Kern, who murders people to create Brains In A Jar so that he can discover the secrets of SCIENCE!
Frederick Irving Anderson's Sophie Lang, a flawless master thief: "Sophie, the uncaught."
4/
Tomas Lann from the film Luch Smerti (The Death Ray): Russian factory worker invents death ray, leads workers' revolution.
*Arthur O. Friel's Roderick McKay--very entertaining stories about a post-WW1 mercenary
* Jennette Lee's Millicent Newbury--crime-solving "mind nurse" 5/
It's #PublicDomainDay, and as requested by @doctorcomics I am providing a list of the best of the pulp heroes who are now in the public domain. * means the character or text they appear in are prime pulp.
Carlo Aldini:
* Bakterev: https://t.co/QQoSLCNIa4
Black Eagle: https://t.co/QujggV83rX
Brigand: https://t.co/uOs7x9Lvwn
* Sir Ralf Clifford: https://t.co/6QXvegLKPk
Earani: https://t.co/uHGIeecPva
Ebony: https://t.co/C7Jc3j4O44
Fifth Wanderer:
Fresquinho: https://t.co/FGRRM4lEEv
Jerzy Hartman: https://t.co/54aVxZKugb
Valentin Katayev's Stanley Holmes, Sherlock Holmes' nephew (son of Mycroft), who goes to India to stop a revolutionary movement from using a Russian scientist's super-magnet to create world peace.
3/
Aleksandr Beliayev's Professor Kern, who murders people to create Brains In A Jar so that he can discover the secrets of SCIENCE!
Frederick Irving Anderson's Sophie Lang, a flawless master thief: "Sophie, the uncaught."
4/
Tomas Lann from the film Luch Smerti (The Death Ray): Russian factory worker invents death ray, leads workers' revolution.
*Arthur O. Friel's Roderick McKay--very entertaining stories about a post-WW1 mercenary
* Jennette Lee's Millicent Newbury--crime-solving "mind nurse" 5/