While this volume pivots around three main axes of mobility – meaning, genre and transnationality – the present chapter privileges the first two perspectives in its reassessment of the origins of one particular genre, or subgenre, of crime writing. Rather than crossing language borders, it explores British and Anglo-American literatures and cultures in the attempt to trace the development of early psycho-thrillers from the eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth, when this subgenre was recognized as such. The aim of this critical enquiry is to highlight key factors such as the impact of pseudo-scientific theories of the mind on the representation of the criminal, the use of first-person narratives that make readers experience warped perceptions and worldviews, and the thematization of amnesia as a device engendering suspense.

Despite its success, the psycho-thriller is still under-theorized, probably because it typifies the mobility of the crime fiction galaxy, whose complexity and volatility resist systematization. Even the critical term is, as Sharon Packer argues (2007: 86), still mobile since the shortening of psychological thriller to psycho thriller is in itself revealing of the increasing relevance of madness within this subgenre. Here I will hyphenate the term to clarify that I intend psycho as a prefix, meaning ‘relating to the mind’, rather than as an abbreviation for psychopath.

The identity of this subgenre is also elusive in other respects. Tracing borders between the psycho-thriller and neighbouring territories is not easy, as recognized by Philip Simpson (2010: 188), who reminds us that Robert Bloch's Psycho (1959) is not only ‘often designated as the origin of the fictional psycho thriller’ but also, and as often, ‘labelled “horror”’; nor is it easy to trace the inception of this literary phenomenon. Without questioning the received idea that the psycho-thriller originated in the mid-twentieth century, Simpson claims that it derived ‘its mood and atmosphere’ from noir (2010: 188). Focusing on these intermedial exchanges is certainly important, but this should not divert our attention from the much deeper roots this subgenre has in previous literature.

The development of the psycho-thriller has arguably escaped closer critical scrutiny precisely because it is at the crossroads between literature and cinema. Significantly, it is in the field of film criticism that most recent studies of the genre have appeared.