- Early Mystery...
First posted on GR here, Oct 8, 2013. Keeping a copy of it here to refer to! Also am going to be adding to it, and hopefully figure a way to to get in some kind of order by date. (I've stuck in a lot of later works frankly just to remind myself to eventually get around to reading/rereading.)
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Booklikes Reading List: Early Mystery and Detective Novels I'm Trying to Read/Find
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Months ago I read an introduction or an essay somewhere about early detective stories and how far the genre went back in history - and I noticed a lot of titles I'd never read, or that I thought I should reread. That lead me to google and then to wikipedia, which gave me a lot of books to work with:
Crime Fiction
History of Crime Fiction
Detective Fiction
Due to my love of public domain/free/old books I've been hunting down examples of those older stories as ebooks, and there's definitely a good amount available. I'm now at the point that it seems a list is in order - for myself anyway - to keep track of what I've read. I'm adding some more recent authors just because they're considered important in the genre - and again, to help me remember what I have and haven't read.
If you've read through and immediately think of any other detective stories - even ones that aren't easily available - please recommend more! (I'm always on the look for more modern stories as well - keeping track of these is more of a genre-history project.)
Assume all of these are available on Gutenberg or Kindle unless I make a note otherwise - I'm only linking some of them that were a bit harder to find. Open Library links will take you to a site where you can sign up and check out books for 2 weeks - just like the library. Other links are to wikipedia and the GoodReads pages. The links to GR Series Pages will list all the author's books in that series and tell you the order they're to be read in.
Books/Authors arranged mostly (currently VERY vaguely) chronologically, oldest first. Author's name links to their wikipedia bio page. If you read my linked GR reviews I'm generally good about hiding spoilers only under links. I also add Gutenberg links to the texts I review so others can find them easily.
Books listed without links mean I haven't found a copy, a translation, or I haven't gotten around to adding links. And of course no link to a review means I haven't read it yet - or for instance, in the case of the Holmes stories I'm too lazy to review them all (most of them are short enough so that it's hard to review them without giving away all the fun).
You may notice that although I started out only tracking early detective stories I went on into the 1950s through 70s. This is mainly because there are some more obscure authors I've meant to track down from those periods, and some I just want to remember to sample. Because at this point the list is long enough for me to forget some of these authors unless I, well, put them all on the list.
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Voltaire - French, 1694 – 1778
Zadig (1748) - wiki - Gutenberg ebook
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E. T. A. Hoffmann - German, 1776 – 1822
"Das Fräulein von Scuderi" (1819) - short story - wiki
The story can be found in Weird Tales, Volume II here at Gutenberg. (And Volume I is here if you want more Hoffman.)
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Steen Steensen Blicher - Danish, 1782 — 1848
The Rector of Veilbye (1829) - short story - wiki - link to online read at Gutenberg - or find it in either of two free story collections: Gutenberg choices here, and Amazon ebooks here or here
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William Evans Burton - British, 1804 – 1860
‘The Secret Cell’ (1837) - a short story - in Gentleman's Magazine, September 1837 issue
And here's a link to that issue of Gentleman's Magazine, thanks to Google Books, and this page discussing various mystery writing.
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Maurits Hansen - Norwegian, 1794 – 1842
Mordet på Maskinbygger Rolfsen/The Murder of Engine Maker Rolfsen (1839) - This looks to be a book that will be a problem tracking down in an English translation.
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Edgar Allen Poe - American, 1809 – 1849
Detective: C. August Dupin - GR page
The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841) - short story - wiki, GR
The Mystery of Marie Roget (1842) - short story - wiki, GR
The Purloined Letter (1844) - short story - wiki, GR
My review - am going to have to link to the book of the stories, but I'll have read them from my own Poe anthology.
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Wilkie Collins - British, 1824 – 1889
The Woman in White (1860) - my review, wiki, GR
Moonstone (1868) - wiki, GR
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Paul Féval - French, 1816 - 1887
Les Habits Noirs - series of 11 novels - though the GR series page only lists 7 (The wikipedia and the GR list don't seem to be the same order.)
It will probably take a bit of time tracking down translations of these (remember, I'm going for the most affordable price here). If you can read French these are much easier to find free sources for - some of Feval's work is here on Gutenberg. Amazon has all (I think) of the Habits Noirs, but only in French. There are a few of Feval's stories on Amazon in English and as ebooks, but I've yet to read them. (I'll update this if/when I find them.)
Les Mystères de Londres /Gentlemen of the Night (1844)
Bel Demonio (1850)
Les Compagnons du Silence /The Companions of Silence (1857)
Jean Diable/John Devil (1857)
Les Habits Noirs/The Black Coats: The Parisian Jungle (1863)
Coeur d’Acier/Heart of Steel (1865)
L’Avaleur de Sabre/The Sword Swallower (1867)
La Rue de Jerusalem/Jerusalem Street/The Black Coats: Salem Street (1867-68)
L’Arme Invisible/The Invisible Weapon/The Black Coats: The Invisible Weapon (1869-70)
Les Compagnons du Trésor/The Companions of the Treasure/The Black Coats: The Companions of the Treasure (1870-72)
La Bande Cadet/The Cadet Gang/The Black Coats: The Cadet Gang (1874-75)
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"Charles Felix" - possibly Charles Warren Adams - British, 1833 – 1903
Notting Hill Mystery (1862–63) - wiki
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Émile Gaboriau - French, 1832 – 1873
Detective: Monsieur Lecoq - GR series page
All of the following can be downloaded as ebooks via the GR page. On the download page note that the (eng) next to the ebook format means English. Also I'm not entirely sure whether the GR's notation of the book order is the same as wikipedia's.
L’Affaire Lerouge/The Lerouge Case (1866) - GR (book 1)
Le Crime d’Orcival/The Mystery of Orcival, Crime at Orcival (1867) - GR (book 2)
Le Dossier No. 113/File No. 113, Dossier No. 113, The Blackmailers (1867) - GR (book 3)
Les Esclaves des Paris/The Slaves of Paris (1868)
Monsieur Lecoq (1869) - my review, wiki, GR (book 4)
“Une Disparition” in Le Petite Vieux des Batingoles/“A Disappearance” in The Little Old Man of Batignoles (1876) - short story
The Honor of the Name - GR (book 5)
Gaboriau's inspiration: Eugène François Vidocq (other authors he inspired here), author of Les Vrais Mémoires de Vidocq (here at Gutenberg, but only in French)
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Arthur Conan Doyle - British, 1859 – 1930
Detective: Sherlock Holmes
Stories written/published: 1880-1927
I read all the Holmes stories a few decades ago (and it's still my favorite reread material whenever I have a cold, no idea why), but I'm adding the following lists of books if anyone wants to peruse them.
GR Series Pages for Holmes:
Sherlock Holmes, 10 Books
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 12 Books
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, 11 Books
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Robert Louis Stevenson - Scottish, 1850 – 1894
Detective: Prince Florizel of Bohemia (sidekick Colonel Geraldine)
The Suicide Club (1878) - 3 short stories, republished in The New Arabian Knights - wiki
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Arthur Morrison - British, 1863 – 1945
Detective: Martin Hewitt
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G. K. Chesterton - British, 1874 – 1936
Detectives: Father Brown - GR series page, Horne Fisher (The Man Who Knew Too Much)
The Club of Queer Trades (1905) - short stories, mocking Holmesian detective plots - wiki
The Innocence of Father Brown (1911) - GR (book 1)
The Wisdom of Father Brown (1914) - short stories - my review, GR(book 2)
The Incredulity of Father Brown (1926) - GR (book 3)
The Secret of Father Brown (1927) - GR (book 4)
The Scandal of Father Brown (1935) - GR (book 5)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1922) - short stories - my review, wiki, GR
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Jacques Heath Futrelle - American, 1875 – 1912
GR Author's page
Detective: Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen ("The Thinking Machine") - no GR series page (9/20/2013)
For stories online: Jacques Futrelle
The Thinking Machine (1907) - reprinted as The Problem of Cell 13 (1918) - wiki
Elusive Isabel (1909) - GR, wiki, Gutenberg
-woman as secret service agent
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Edmund Clerihew Bentley/E. C. Bentley - British, 1875 – 1956
GR author's page
Detective: Phillip Trent - GR series page, 3 books
Trent's Last Case (1913)
Trent's Own Case (1936)
Trent Intervenes
Trent's Case Book
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R. Austin Freeman - British, 1862 – 1943
Detective: Dr. Thorndyke - GR series page, 26 books
Since there are so many Thorndyke books I'm not going to list them all - just check out the GR link above. I'll add more to this list only as I'm able to find and read them.
The Vanishing Man/The Eye of Osiris (1911) - my review, GR
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Ernest Bramah - British, 1868 – 1942
Detective: Max Carrados
There isn't a GR series page (at the moment) for the Max Carrados mysteries and it really does need one.
Four Max Carrados Detective Stories (1914) - GR
Max Carrados (1914) - GR
Eyes of Max Carrados (1923) - GR
Max Carrados Mysteries (1927) - GR
The Bravo of London (1934) - GR
Best Max Carrados Detective Stories (1972) - GR
The Max Carrados Portfolio - GR - stories are taken from five separate books published between 1914 and 1934
12 Cases for Max Carrados - GR - 12 earliest stories
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Robert van Gulik , translator - Dutch (?), 1910 – 1967
Detective: Judge Dee - GR series page, 17 books
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Margery Allingham - British, 1904 – 1966
Detective: Albert Champion - GR series page, 26 books
Publish dates: 1929-1968
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Ngaio Marsh - New Zealander, 1895 – 1982
Detective: Roderick Alleyn - GR series page, 32 books
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Dorothy L. Sayers - British, 1893 – 1957
GR author page
Detective: Lord Peter Wimsey - GR series page, 25 books; Lord Peter Wimsey & Harriet Vane - GR series page, 4 books (Those last 4 are mentioned already on the Lord Peter series page.)
All due for a reread, and I'll add a review this time around.
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Agatha Christie - British, 1890 – 1976
GR author page
Detectives: Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Captain Arthur Hastings, Colonel Race, Ariadne Oliver, Tommy and Tuppence, Superintendent Battle, Parker Pyne, Harley Quin - see the GR Series Page for details.
When I was in high school my mother and I made a game of trying to collect and read every Christie that had been published. To note the difficulty of this you should know:
1) This was the 1980s and the internet wasn't available for a quick list of the book titles,
2) There was no way to order books online so you had to check at local bookstores - and at the same time keep notes on/remember which books you already owned and read,
3) Often Christie books would have different titles in the US versus the UK. Which meant it was very easy to buy the same book twice, or be unsure if there were still other books you hadn't read since you didn't recognize that UK title. That's aside from some of the plots being similar.
Anyway, we hunted them down (which was half the fun) and read all of them, including the books Christie published as Mary Westmacott, and her autobiography and her plays. Having looked at the GR lists I think I might need to check out Colonel Race again, as I only vaguely remember him.
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Victor Whitechurch - British, 1868 – 1933
GR author page
Detective: Thorpe Hazell
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Philip Macdonald - British, 1900 — 1980
GR Author page
Detective: Colonel Anthony Gethryn - GR series page, 12 books
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S. S. Van Dine/Willard Huntington Wright - American, 1888 – 1939
Detective: Philo Vance - GR page, 12 books
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John Dickson Carr - American, 1906 – 1977
Known as "master of the locked room mystery"
Detectives: Dr. Gideon Fell - GR page, 23 books; Henri Bencolin - GR page, 5 books
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Edgar Wallace - British, 1875 – 1932
GR Author Page
Detectives: J. G. Reeder, The Four Just Men, Detective Sgt. (Insp.) Elk
The Dark Eyes of London (1924) - my review, wiki, GR
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Dashiell Hammett - American, 1894 – 1961
GR Author Page
Detectives: Sam Spade, The Thin Man, The Continental Op - GR Series Page
The Maltese Falcon (1930) - my review, wiki, GR (and a list of quotes I compiled that I was amused by)
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Jonathan Latimer - American, 1906 – 1983
GR Author Page
Detective: Bill Crane - GR Series Page, was also a writer for the tv series Columbo
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Erle Stanley Gardner - American, 1889 – 1970
GR Author Page
Detectives: Perry Mason - GR Series Page, 85 books, Doug Selby - GR Series Page, 9 books, Terry Clane - GR Series Page, 2 books, Gramp Wiggens - GR Series Page, 2 books
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Raymond Chandler - American, 1888 – 1959
GR Author Page
Detective: Phillip Marlow - GR Series Page, 8 books
Chandler is one of my favorite authors, and since I reread him regularly I'll eventually get around to reviewing all of these. One problem with reading Chandler's style of the hard boiled detective - he ruins you for all his contemporaries because Chandler's the better writer. Well, that's my opinion anyway.
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Ernest Dudley - British, 1908 – 2006
GR Author Page
Detective: Dr Morelle - the psychiatrist/detective starred in a hit BBC radio series, and also in a series of books
A Case for Dr. Morelle
Dr. Morelle Meets Murder
Dr. Morelle at Midnight
Confess to Dr. Morelle
New Cases for Dr. Morelle
Dr. Morelle and the Doll
Dr. Morelle's Casebook
Meet Dr. Morelle
Menace for Dr. Morelle
The Mind of Dr. Morelle
Nightmare for Dr. Morelle
Dr. Morelle Investigates
Alibi and Dr. Morelle
Dr. Morelle and Destiny
Dr. Morelle Intervenes
The Mind of Dr. Morelle: A Classic Crime Novel
Dr. Morelle Marches on
Menace for Dr. Morelle
Dr. Morelle Takes a Bow
Dr. Morelle & the Drummer Girl
[No GR series posted as of 9/14/2013, and wikipedia doesn't have any info on Morelle except for the 1949 film. I'm still looking for dates on these. Meanwhile I need to see if Dudley wrote series for any of these characters: The Amazing Martin Brett or Jimmy Strange or Mr. Walker or Mr. Budd.]
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James Hadley Chase - British, 1906 – 1985
GR Author Page
Detectives: Dave Fenner - GR Series Page, 2 books, Frank Terrell - GR Series Page, 5 books, Helga Rolfe - GR Series Page, 3 books, Steve Harmas - GR Series Page, 5 books, Mark Girland - GR Series Page, 4 books
Blonde's Requiem (1945) - GR
Lay Her Among the Lilies (1950) - GR
Figure It Out for Yourself (1950) - GR
(Not sure I remember where I picked up those particular 3 as books of note - probably the wiki page.)
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Ross Macdonald , pseudonym of Kenneth Millar - American Canadian, 1915 – 1983
GR Author Page
Detective: Lew Archer - GR Series Page, 20 books, Chet Gordon - GR Series Page, 2 books
The Drowning Pool (1950) - GR, Open Library
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Cecil Street - British, 1884 - 1965
GR Author Page as John Rhode, GR Author Page as Miles Burton
Detective: Dr. Priestley - GR Series Page, 72 books, Desmond Merrion - GR Series Page, 61 books
These books don't seem to be easily available - not as ebooks to lend or buy.
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Rex Stout - American, 1886 – 1975
GR Author Page
Detective: Nero Wolfe - GR Series Page, 47 books and 9 novellas; Tecumseh Fox - GR Series Page, 3 books
Fer de Lance (1934) - GR, Open Library
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Ellery Queen - pseudonym for Daniel Nathan, alias Frederic Dannay and Manford (Emanuel) Lepofsky, alias Manfred Bennington Lee - American; 1905 – 1982 and 1905 – 1971
GR Author Page
Detective: Ellery Queen - GR series page, 36 books and Wrightsville Chronicles, 7 books. Also story collections Masterpieces of Mystery, 20 books.
The French Powder Mystery (1930) - GR, Open Library
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Mickey Spillane - American, 1918 – 2006
GR Author Page
Detective: Mike Hammer - GR Series Page, 17 books, Tiger Mann - GR Series Page, 4 books
Kiss Me Deadly (1952) - GR, Open Library
I had not heard of Tiger Mann and am still facepalming, thinking "Really?! Tigerman?!" Very tempted to find out if the book is as cheesy as the character name.
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Edith Pargeter/Ellis Peters - British, 1913 – 1995
GR Author Page for Edith Pargeter and GR Page for Ellis Peters
Detective: Brother Cadfael - at GR under Ellis Peters, GR series page, 23 books
A Morbid Taste For Bones (1977) - GR, Open Library
