Making the Perfect Record: From Inscription to Impression in Early Magnetic RecordingMain MenuAboutAbstract for “Making the Perfect Record,” American Literature 85.4 (December 2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2370230, Duke U PIntroductionIntroduction to Making the Perfect Record: From Inscription to Impression in Early Magnetic RecordingNotesNotes for “Making the Perfect Record,” American Literature 85.4 (December 2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2370230, Duke U PMediaMedia for “Making the Perfect Record,” American Literature 85.4 (December 2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2370230, Duke U PAcknowledgmentsAcknowledgments for “Making the Perfect Record,” American Literature 85.4 (December 2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2370230, Duke U PTechnical InformationTechnical Information for “Making the Perfect Record,” American Literature 85.4 (December 2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2370230, Duke U PReferencesReferences for “Making the Perfect Record,” American Literature 85.4 (December 2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2370230, Duke U PJentery Sayersbecbfb529bffcfafdfad6920ed57b30ccdca5339This essay is part of the “New Media” special issue of American Literature (volume 85, number 4, December 2013). See http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2370230. Version 1 of the site is (c) 2013 by Duke University Press.
Inspiration
12013-10-14T17:48:28-07:00Jentery Sayersbecbfb529bffcfafdfad6920ed57b30ccdca53392496Reeve was a key actor in spreading scientific knowledge to the masses through his scientific realist detective stories.plain2013-12-14T09:55:50-08:00Jentery Sayersbecbfb529bffcfafdfad6920ed57b30ccdca5339Acknowledging this same sentiment twenty-seven years later, well-reputed science fiction publisher Hugo Gernsback introduced a Scientific Detective Monthly essay by Reeve with these acclamations: “Mr. Reeve, as the creator of Craig Kennedy, has perhaps done more for the dissemination of science through the medium of detective stories than any other man alive. Mr. Reeve has always kept within the strict bounds of science” (quoted in Locke 2007, 30).47 Only a sentence later, Gernsback speculates that, because of Reeve’s work, police forces in the United States are integrating new technologies into their departments in order to solve crimes and increase efficiency (30). For Reeve, this tangible correlation between actuality and fiction was—at least for a writer of detective stories—how to differentiate a modern approach from its predecessors, such as fiction by Edgar Allan Poe and Conan Doyle. From his perspective, scientific detective fiction did more than represent rationalist instrumentality. It had a populist, real-world accessibility. It was more applicable to everyday life than Romantic analysis or even Holmesian deduction.48
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12013-12-14T09:47:23-08:00Scientific Detective Monthly (1929)3From Dummy Edition of Scientific Detective Monthly, Hugo Gernsback, ed. (1929)media/scifidetective.pngplain2013-12-19T08:48:38-08:00