The interplay between crime fact and crime fiction can be detected back to literature's earliest beginnings. True crime has long been the basis of many plots of memorable literature - from Nathaniel Hawthorne's ""The Scarlet Letter"" to Jean Genet's play ""The Maids"", there has often been blood on the page. This guide to ""fact-based crime literature"" focuses on two principal groups of works: non-fictional accounts of crimes and criminal trials, including essays, monographs, journalism, editions of court transcripts, prison histories, and criminal and police biographies; and works of imaginative literature, such as novels, stories or stage works, based on or inspired by actual crimes or criminals.