Welcome to Part 1 of May Classic Crime Read-Along, where we introduce this month’s selection. Today we’ll look at the “Golden Age” of detective fiction and the British ladies who headlined it. Please feel very invited to join in the conversation at any point along the way! You can check out the calendar for the full read-along schedule.
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We’ve been tracing the origins of crime fiction from a Poe short story published in 1841 to the genre-maker and-breaker, Sherlock Holmes, whose adventures were first published in the 1880s. After Sherlock, the history of crime fiction becomes less linear, and less simple to chart. Because of the Sherlock-inspired proliferation of detective novels, we see the birth of a genre: a community of readers, who read crime fiction both independently and socially; a growing number of interested writers, who would gradually grow into a community themselves; a pantheon of well-known characters.
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From now on, there are just too many good authors and good books for me to make monthly selections without regrets. So we’ll proceed thematically: each Read-Along pick will be an example of an idea or micro-genre, and I’ll suggest some further reading if you’re looking for a little more breadth.
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The 1920s and 1930s are called the Golden Age of crime fiction. I propose that we use that handle—”Golden Age”—as a nomenclature convention and not as a judgment label (I just don’t like the implication that everything was awesome back then and has gone downhill since; yes, the Golden Age was great, but the genre grows and changes and produces other great stuff all the time).
The Golden Age was dominated by female detective fiction writers, most of them British. You might have heard the expression “the Queens of Crime”; it probably was used to refer to Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, and Margery Allingham. Singularly, “the Queen of Crime” usually refers to Agatha Christie, the most prolific of those ladies.They codified and popularized a standard of quality detective fiction: the plots must be absorbing, the characters memorable (often offbeat, eccentric, or otherwise brightly colored), and whodunnit must be a satisfying surprise (unless the reader was paying very close attention).
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After this point, we have a divergence of cozy and noir. In these Golden Age stories, we still often see resolution and justice (which we don’t always see in noir crime fiction that will follow in the next decades).
It’s also neat, in my opinion, to see the evolution of forensic science as fictionalized by these authors. Lord Peter Wimsey’s butler can test blood for matches in a way Sherlock Holmes just couldn’t 30 years earlier.
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You’ll have noticed by now Josephine Tey’s name is not on this list, although she was alive and writing during the same period (she lived 1896-1952). Why is she less famous? Perhaps because her career was relatively short, compared to the other Grand Dames. Perhaps because she wrote under so many different pen names (her real name was Elizabeth Mackintosh) her oevre never flourished in the public eye. Maybe, as one bookseller suggested to me, “she was just too damn good a writer for people.”
So why did I pick her? I guess because she’s my favorite so far, of all the Golden Age writers I’ve read (and I have enjoyed them all so far). Tey’s writing is really top-notch, and I hope you’ll agree when you’ve finished The Man in the Queue that her plots are constructed with real fair-play surprises for the reader. As a mystery editor, I have come to learn what a difficult feat to pull off that is.
Also, I chose Tey to be contrary. I guess I’m a little wistful she’s been forgotten and overlooked, even though I just discovered her myself.
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The Man in the Queue was Tey’s first novel, published in 1929 under another one of her pseudonyms, Gordon Daviot. The lead detective character, Scotland Yard inspector Alan Grant, would go on to appear in 4 other novels, including The Daughter of Time (1951), which, anecdotally, I have found is the Josephine Tey book people are most likely to have read. In it, Grant solves the mystery of whether King Richard III did in fact kill his nephews back in the 1480s—in fact, Grant solves this mystery from his bed while he’s housebound with a broken leg.
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As for the Golden Age and the Queens of Crime, I hope we will come back to at least one of these other excellent ladies during the Read-Along. But in case you’re looking for a little more Golden Age reading now, let’s talk a bit about each:
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Agatha Christie (1890-1976) wrote 66 detective novels as well as short story collections and plays. Her first mystery novel was published in 1920. Her recurring characters include Miss Marple, based on Christie’s own grandmother, and Hercule Poirot, a Holmes-esque eccentric genius detective. Her first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was published in 1920. The Guinness Book of World Records names Christie the bestselling author of all time, with more than 4 billion books in print.
Although I’ve enjoyed all the Christie stories I’ve read so far, she’s my least favorite of the ladies here. Her craft is focused on plot structure and trickiness, not necessarily on elegant writing. Nevertheless, the trickiness makes it all worthwhile. I recently saw her stage play “The Unexpected Guest”; I loved the ending, although for a completely different reason than the women sitting next to me in the audience loved the ending. At least two plot tricks involved there, then; tricky, indeed!
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Dorothy Sayers (1893-1957) wrote at least 23 crime novels, but lots of related story collections and a separate large body of academic work and poetry. Her popular recurring character is amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey, who is aided by his clever and loyal butler. Together they are a superhumanly-talented duo who aid the incompetents at Scotland Yard in perpetrating justice.
A consummate stylist, Sayers packed plenty of wordplay and whimsy into her writing. I recommend starting with Whose Body?, her first Lord Peter novel, which was published in 1923.
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Ngaio Marsh (1895-1982), the only non-Brit among the Queens, was a New Zealander. Despite this, most of her books are set in England; her recurring character is British detective Roderick Alleyn. She wrote 32 detective novels in her life.
Of the Queens, she is my mother’s favorite. Which I’m sure is important to you.
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Margery Allingham (1904-1966) published her first novel when she was only 19,in 1923, and went on to publish 36 novels as well as novellas and short stories. Albert Campion, her recurring sleuth, was a parody of Sayers’s Lord Peter Wimsey.
I haven’t read any Allingham yet, and would love personal recommendations.
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Now, dear reader, educate me in your reading habits:
-Do you have a favorite author among the above-mentioned demi-goddesses?
-Do you have favorite books, or series?
-Am I missing other under-appreciated wonders like Tey?