Chapter 2 - Detecting Modernist Form and the New Professional

Summary

This chapter explores how The Moonstone and A Study in Scarlet are interested in finance capital even though they do not appear to concern themselves with such questions. They are both interested in the collapse of character as value form and in the appearance of professional class characters. As the earlier novel, The Moonstone remains committed to the ethical universe of class society and shores up the value form of character. As such, it serves as a point of contrast to A Study in Scarlet, the first Sherlock Holmes novel. Traditionally marginalized in literary studies as an example of popular detective fiction, A Study in Scarlet can be read as a proto-modernist novel that participates in the historical process of finance capital in two ways: It orients its ethical universe around the emerging professional society, and its structure refuses to resolve contradictions in the legibility of character.