The paper deals with the problem of typological similarities of N.D. Akhsharumov’s Novel «Nobody was any the Wiser» and W.W. Collins’s Novel «The Woman in White». On the basis of a literary analysis a conclusion is drawn about the influence of the English social-criminal novel (and the «sensational» one as its variety) on different levels of the Russian detective genre. Being adopted in the classical literature, this genre modification was accepted by the writers of the «second» rank as well, and its poetics was reflected in the Russian belletristic literature of the second half of the 19th century in different narrative structures. Nevertheless, the reception of the English «sensational» novel in both classical and mass literature occurred under the conditions of the Russian national literary traditions and requirements which introduced their artistic peculiarities into the form of the subsequent interaction of the genres.