Masterworks of Detective Fiction: Lecture #1
Tuesday, February 8 from 5:30 – 7:00pm via Zoom

Green Mountain Academy for Lifelong Learning (GMALL) is thrilled to welcome back Williams College Professor Julie Cassiday to lead this three-part series on masterworks of detective fiction. Before Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, or Philip Marlowe captured the world’s imagination, writers had to invent the literary detective, whose eccentric personality and unpredictable actions have led to the genre’s remarkable popularity, adaptability, and longevity. In this course we explore the origins of detective fiction by examining three masterworks of the genre from the mid nineteenth century. We begin on February 8th with Edgar Allan Poe’s pioneering story “The Purloined Letter” (1844), which reveals that successful detectives, like C. Auguste Dupin, rely not on deductive, but rather abductive reasoning — which we will define in the classroom — to figure out “whodunit.” Registration is $45 for all three sessions, or $18 per lecture. For more information or to register, please call our office at 802-867-0111 or visit www.greenmtnacademy.org.