That got me wondering. Why are so few of our contemporary crime/mystery books illustrated?
It’s not like there’s no tradition of illustrated works. The original Sherlock Holmes was heavily illustrated by Sidney Paget. He created more than 300 images, from full-page pictures to detailed spot illustrations.
Agatha Christie’s first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, had several maps and illustrations in its first appearances, but her later ones did not. Early Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books had limited illustrations.
A few more recent works with illustrations come to mind. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon is illustrated. Several popular books, like The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall and The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman, are available in illustrated versions in addition to the original, image-free editions.
Illustrations are more common in some other types of genre fiction. Speculative fiction, both sci-fi and fantasy, often use images to augment the text. So does horror. Romance and historical fiction often include pictures.
What do illustrations do?
They serve as a kind of “shorthand” to convey information and atmosphere without the author resorting to elaborate descriptions or “info dumps.”
They enhance character-building, adding additional physical descriptive elements. They can show subtle expressions and body language. Personality traits can be effectively reinforced.
They drop the reader immediately into the setting, whether it’s a familiar small town, a bustling city, or something more exotic.
They can present maps, diagrams, or relationship trees that clarify complex narratives.
>They have an emotional and cognitive impact on the readers, strengthening memory retentions and sparking imagination.
Novels rely on the written narrative to tell the story. A novel with illustrations is not a graphic novel or comic book, which rely on sequential art panels to move the story forward.
Can illustrations provide too much superficial information too easily, thus discouraging the reader from becoming emotionally involved in the story? Possibly. I suspect it would be different for different readers. And different authors. Reader involvement is important. Most of the early Harlequin romances were careful to severely limit even written descriptions of the heroine so that each reader could more easily place herself in that role.
I feel that my Christmas short stories need illustrations, so I am exploring my options. I don’t feel nearly as strongly about my crime/mystery tales.
Are you familiar with crime/mystery works that use illustrations? Do you think illustrations would appeal to today’s readers?
Graphic novels have a large following, so clearly there is a market for illustrations. I added a hand-drawn map of the area in which the novel (Granite oath - Seamus McCree #7) took place to give readers a ready reference of named places. Purportedly it was created by a child, but since that's my skill level, I did it myself.
ReplyDeleteClever! And probably very useful to the readers.
ReplyDeleteExcellent points, KM. I remember the illustrated Nancy Drew books, and I always enjoy maps in mysteries. Especially cozies. One caveat, though. These days, most of my reading is on a Kindle Paperwhite and sadly the illustrations are unidentifiable, especially my beloved maps.
ReplyDeleteYes, that is a problem. The images don't always come through legibly and they can play havoc with the variable pagination.
DeleteDell had a series of paperback mysteries later known as mapbacks which included the scene of the crime on the back cover. There are several websites that give information about them.
ReplyDeleteThere are people who collect them
Many of the Golden Age mysteries included floor plans of the houses or geographical maps detailing the layouts of different relevant locations in the towns.
A list of characters with descriptions of their relationships to each other. This is helpful when there is a large cast of characters or many people with similar names or titles.
You don’t necessarily want too many illustrations since that can take away from using your imagination to visualize what a place or person looks like. That is why the radio shows were so popular.
The actors reading the scripts often looked quite different in real life from what their voices portrayed. When some of these programs became tv shows the radio actors had to be replaced.
Thank you for pointing this out! I was not aware of the series. I will have to look into them.
DeleteYes, illustrations enhance short stories. James Scott Bell's Sister Justicia novellas have simple illustrations or chapter headers.
ReplyDeleteI've read some of those, but I didn't remember the illustrations. I'll have to go back and take a look.
DeleteI think illustrations would be fun. They probably began eliminating them as a cost savings effort.
ReplyDeleteYou may very well be right. Although compared to the cost years ago of preparing a wood-block illustration, today's cost would be small.
ReplyDelete