Murder in Arcadia

Towards a Pastoral of Responsibility in Phil Rickman’s Merrily Watkins Murder Mystery Series

Authors

  • Kym Martindale Falmouth University

Abstract

Phil Rickman’s Merrily Watkins murder mystery series look to the ‘golden age’ of detective fiction to create then undo the pastoral upon which that form heavily relied. This paper examines how such a strategy might be termed post-pastoral in Terry Gifford’s understanding of that term, and promotes the idea that popular fiction has a role to play in reshaping pastoral so that it speaks to and for a future, rather than an idyllic and fictional past.

Author Biography

  • Kym Martindale, Falmouth University

    Dr Kym Martindale (1957) is Senior Lecturer in English, Falmouth University, Cornwall, UK. She researches legacies of Romanticism in contemporary poetry and fiction, and has recently published work on Alice Oswald.

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Published

2026-05-04

Issue

Vol. 26 No. 2 (2013): Ecocriticism

Section

Main Section

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Martindale, K. (2026). Murder in Arcadia: Towards a Pastoral of Responsibility in Phil Rickman’s Merrily Watkins Murder Mystery Series. FRAME, Journal of Literary Studies, 26(2), 23-36. https://platform.openjournals.nl/FRAME/article/view/27417