From the history of Italian proto-detective novel: F. Mastriani, E. de Marchi, C. Invernizio

In this paper the author continues the investigation of the Italian proto-detective novel. Earlier she looked at the origins of giallo (it literally means “yellow”; an Italian term for detective fiction) in such novels as Francesco Mastriani’s novel My corpse (1852), Emilio De Marchi’s novel The priest’s hat (1888), and examined some features of poetics in Carolina Invernizio’s novel Kiss of the Dead Woman (1886). In addition to the mentioned texts, the present paper investigates two texts that were not examined earlier; both are important for the development of the detective genre. One is the late novel of Mastriani - The bloody toast (1891). It has new features absent from his earlier works: there is the mystery as to who is the criminal (“whodunit”), which calls for a competition between the reader and the police working on the case; and accordingly, there are hints helping the reader to solve the case. The other text is the novel Nina, the amateur policewoman (1909) by Carolina Invernizio, whose protagonist can be considered the first Italian female detective “by chance” (L. Crovi). Nina gets involved in the investigation of her groom’s murder. She becomes a detective accidentally and acts out of her personal motives and not because it is her job or vocation. Finally -and this is something that can be examined in future research - the paper mentions a competitor of Invernizio’s heroines - professional detective Anna Stephenson, a character of a series of stories by Franco Bello.