Mon 11 Oct 2010
FORTY FROM THE TWENTIES, by Curt J. Evans.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists[10] Comments
by Curt J. Evans
This list follows (or precedes) my list of “50 Favorite Golden Age Generation British Detective Novels,” which you may find here. This list consists of more worthy British works of detection, both novels and short story collections, but with the additional restriction that the books that follow all came from the 1920s. One may notice that, once again, men predominate, in this case accounting for 75% of the books.
The top authors, accounting for 70% of the books, are: Freeman Wills Crofts (5), R. Austin Freeman (4), John Rhode (4), Agatha Christie (3), Dorothy L. Sayers (2), G.D.H and Margaret Cole (2), Gladys Mitchell (2), J.J. Connington (2) and Henry Wade (2).
Looking overall at the Twenties, 43% of the books come from just two years, 1928 and 1929, suggesting that the genre was improving as the decade wore on and was heading into its most golden years yet, those of the 1930s.
NOVELS (36)
Omissions include Herbert Adams, Lynn Brock, A. Fielding, Ronald Knox and Philip Macdonald; but I am not crazy about Brock, I have not read enough Adams, and I believe the other three did much better work in the next decade.
1. Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)
A fine country house mystery that gave the world Hercule Poirot. A bit old-fashioned, but all in all one of the strongest debuts in the literature.
2. Freeman Wills Crofts, The Cask (1920)
Another significant debut, for its apotheosis of alibi-busting and astonishing devotion to material detail. Over- long, as the author himself admitted, but one that should be read.
3. Eden Phillpotts, The Grey Room (1921)
Unfairly dismissed by Julian Symons, this tale is an appealing take on the haunted room theme. Though it exhibits the venerable author’s penchant for philosophical digressions (which became even more pronounced as he aged), it is shorter than many of his works — and is none the worse for that.
4. A.A. Milne, The Red House Mystery (1922)
Infamously dismantled by Raymond Chandler, this charming tale is still enjoyable even if one concedes logical faults in the plot structure.
5. Edgar Wallace, The Crimson Circle (1922)
A deservedly once-celebrated tale by the British Golden Age King of the Thriller. This one allows scope for deduction by the reader and clearly influenced the genre.
6. R. Austin Freeman, The Cat’s Eye (1923)
Another thrillerish tale, but still one with plenty of ratiocination by the author’s Great Detective, Dr. Thorndyke.
7. Dorothy L. Sayers, Whose Body? (1923)
Another fine debut. Some may find Great Detective Lord Peter Wimsey too facetious, but the tale is very clever, with a memorable culprit.
8. Freeman Wills Crofts, Inspector French’s Greatest Case (1924)
The debut of Inspector French sees the author moving away from dependence on alibis, but still prolific with clever devices of deception. Too much travelogue and dialect speech, but still a good case.
9. A. E. W. Mason, The House of the Arrow (1924)
A major work by an author who contributed only sparingly to mystery. Beautifully written.
10. G. D. H. and Margaret Cole, The Death of a Millionaire (1925)
While flawed in some ways, this tale demonstrates that British Golden Age mystery could be used as a vehicle for leftist-tinged satire.
11. R. Austin Freeman, The Shadow of the Wolf (1925)
Freeman’s most famous inverted mysteries are the tales collected in The Singing Bone and the 1930s novel Mr. Pottermack’s Oversight, but this inverted tale, an expansion of an earlier version, is very good indeed.
12. Anthony Wynne, The Mystery of the Evil Eye (1925)
The debut of Great Detective Dr. Hailey, who later revealed a marked penchant for locked room problems. No such problem here, but another noteworthy debut.
13. Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926)
Brilliant; one of the landmarks of the genre, probably the archetypal twenties detective novel, wrongly or rightly.
14. G. D. H. and Margaret Cole, The Blatchington Tangle (1926)
A humorous country house tale, but with more detection than we get in, say, Agatha Christie’s similar (and better- known) The Secret of Chimneys (which was published the previous year).
15. John Rhode, Dr. Priestley’s Quest (1926)
The author’s second Dr. Priestly tale, but more striking than the first in its impressively rigorous application of the principles of logical deduction.
16. J. J. Connington, Murder in the Maze (1927)
In some ways repellent in attitude, yet inspired in its central notion (multiple slayings in one of those country house garden hedge mazes) and told with verve.
17. Freeman Wills Crofts, Inspector French and the Starvel Tragedy (1927)
One of the great original uses of burned bodies, even if laborious at times in the telling.
18. Dorothy L. Sayers, Unnatural Death (1927)
Offers a notably celebrated how? problem and an interesting why? one, plus some amusing writing and a very well-observed spinster.
19. Victor L. Whitechurch, The Crime at Diana’s Pool (1927)
Archetypal country house, village tale. Drawn mildly, but pleasantly (thanks David!).
20. Freeman Wills Crofts, The Sea Mystery (1928)
One of the author’s shorter works and none the worse for that. Some very clever devices, and characters less stodgy than usual. It should have been called The Crate, however.
21. Anthony Gilbert, The Murder of Mrs. Davenport (1928)
One of the early detective novels by a prolific author who was more comfortable, in my opinion, with mystery than true detection. But this is one of her best efforts at true detection.
22. Robert Gore-Browne, Murder of an M. P.! (1928)
One of two mysteries by a forgotten playwright and mainstream novelist. The second, a thriller, is much inferior in my view. The first, praised in A Catalogue of Crime, is a clever tale with a memorable amateur detective.
23. R. Austin Freeman, As a Thief in the Night (1928)
An impressive achievment. Though somewhat old-fashioned in tone, the novel boasts good characterization, suspense and fascinating science.
24. John Rhode, The Murders in Praed Street (1928)
Notable use of a particular plot gambit involving multiple murders (the first?). Good opening setting, some good characters and fiendish murders, though Dr. Priestley, Rhode’s Great Detective, is a bit imperceptive on one matter!
25. Henry Wade, This Missing Partners (1928)
Second genre effort by one of the major figures of the period. More “Croftsian” than later works, but with interesting and original characterization.
26. Agatha Christie, The Seven Dials Mystery (1929)
The Crime Queen’s take on an Edgar Wallace thriller, but with all the detection of her straight detective novels. Some good humor as well.
27. Freeman Wills Crofts, The Box Office Murders (1929)
Another thriller with detection. We know who the criminals are, but just what they are up to is an interesting question.
28. J. J. Connington, The Case with Nine Solutions (1929)
The Case with Nine Possibilities might have been a more accurate title, but this is a strong work, with an interesting situation and even detective case notes at the end!
29. C. H .B. Kitchin, Death of My Aunt (1929)
Once celebrated (and still fairly well-remembered) detective novel by a mainstream novelist successfully aiming here at a more realistic treatment of character in a genre novel.
30. & 31. Gladys Mitchell, Speedy Death (1929), The Mystery of a Butcher’s Shop (1929)
An impressive one-two debut punch by a truly unique mystery writer. The first, a country house tale, is original in myriad ways. So is the second, though for many it may be too farcical and bizarre. Both have Mrs. Bradley, one of the great women detectives.
32. E. R. Punshon, The Unexpected Legacy (1928)
First of five Inspector Carter and Sergeant Bell mysteries by a longtime mainstream novelist who had written mystery before but not really detection. There is detection here, though the author would produce better examples of it later. What appeals most are his two police detectives, who are very original for the period.
33. & 34. John Rhode, The Davidson Case (1929), The House on Tollard Ridge (1929)
The first novel boasts one of the most complex plots of the decade, the second pleasingly adult characters, a spooky house and some neat gadgets. Both have the acerbic Dr. Priestley.
35. P[eter] R[edcliffe] Shore, The Bolt (1929)
A strong village take by an author about whom I know absolutely nothing beyond the name and that he was born in 1892, ostensibly. He published a second mystery, The Death Film, in 1932. Of this later book a review states: “It consists of detection, and more detection, and then some, and it was all needed. Straight investigation of crooked involution can hardly be better done.” Apparently it involves murder at the cinema, but I have never seen a copy of it.
36. Henry Wade, The Duke of York’s Steps (1929)
Another notable work of detection by this author, with better-than-average characterization and writing.
SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS (4)
Omissions here include collections by Christie, the Coles, and Sayers, as well as one by the Grand Old Man himself, Arthur Conan Doyle. I believe the four collections below are superior, coming from supreme masters of the short form who were still at the top of their games.
37. Ernest Bramah, The Eyes of Max Carrados (1923)
38. H. C. Bailey, Mr. Fortune’s Trials (1925)
39. G. K. Chesterton, The Incredulity of Father Brown (1926)
40. R. Austin Freeman, The Magic Casket (1927)
October 12th, 2010 at 2:01 am
A handful here I haven’t read, but of the ones I have no argument at all.
Glad you liked the Whitechurch. I prefer his earlier shorts, but the novels are enjoyable.
A few here I will have to look up, but that’s half the fun.
I agree about Brock, as for Adams, like MacDonald his best work comes later.
I’ve always been fond of Crofts and French. I suppose they are a bit stodgy, but like Freeman he can make dullness a virtue, and in their own way they are almost compelling in that you keep turning the pages to see all the t’s crossed and i’s dotted. There is a craftsmanship to Crofts work that is very pleasing to a careful reader.
Between the two of us perhaps we can start an American Mrs. Bradley revival. She’s too little known here, and though Mitchell can take a bit of getting used to they really are some of the most entertaining mysteries I’ve ever read.
Connington and Wade are two others who never quite got their due in the States. Wade in particular is a major player in the British police procedural, and in his own quiet way genius.
The early Priestly’s are some of Rhode’s most entertaining work and continued well into the thirites. I’ve read all of these and concur on all of them.
I’ve never been a great fan of Gilbert, but I do agree this is a good one, and her forte was the mystery side of things and not the detective work.
THE CRIMSON CIRCLE was the first Edgar Wallace I read and I agree wholeheartedly. When Wallace put his hand to it he could do quite well with the detective story side of things.
Chandler is right about Milne and Christie’s MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS as far as he goes, but both books are great fun if you take them for the artifical contstucts they are meant to be. They aren’t meant to be taking place in the everyday workaday world to begin with, and to critique them from that point of view is unfair, a bit like trying to attack THE LORD OF THE RINGS because there is no Middle Earth, no Hobbits, and no orcs in the real world.
Considering the amount of romance Chandler injected into the hard boiled tale I always wondered a bit about his attacks on Milne and Christie. He’s only marginally more realist than they are.
Phillipotts is another that deserves to be better known.
Four fine choices for the shorts. INCREDULITY is — I think — the first Father Brown collection to come out after Chesterton became a Catholic in 1922 making an interesting contrast with the other books all written when he was still an Anglican.
October 12th, 2010 at 2:03 pm
Great stuff, thanks! And thanks for reminding me of Freeman Wills Croft. I read him many years ago, early in my marriage, my ex-husband liked to read him as well. Good memories. There are quite a few titles here I haven’t read but that sound mighty interesting. If only I could spend 24/7 reading than all would be well and I could play catch-up as much as I liked.
I wish you’d included THE SECRET OF CHIMNEYS, one of my Agatha Christie rereads whenever I need cheering up.
I see you don’t have any Mary Roberts Rinehart. Didn’t like her – huh? I’ve always been partial to THE BAT and THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE.
October 12th, 2010 at 6:17 pm
Hi Yvette,
I think I’m in a small minority in preferring Christie’s The Seven Dials Mystery (which uses some of the same characters from Chimneys). I think part of this is nostalgia, if I’m being honest, because it was one of the first Christies I read as a kid! Also I think it has more detection/clueing than Chimneys (as I recollect anyway).
I didn’t include Rinehart because it was just a British list, so that would be cheating! But I do like some of Rinehart’s books. I’ve been meaning to do a review of a pair of more obscure novellas by her. Like you suggest, though, so much to read, so little time!
Glad to see some words for Crofts. He was a pretty big pot in the 1920s!
October 12th, 2010 at 6:22 pm
David, yeah, given the rap Wallace gets, I was surprised how much I liked The Crimson Circle. I think the trick with Wallace is finding the better stuff amid all that he wrote, when he wrote so much.
I like Chandler, but his “reality” is highly stylized, just as it is in the world of the Crime Queens. I’m not sure the hardboiled “femme fatale” is any more strictly believable than the aristocratic amateur detective. But I don’t care that much. Works from both schools are enjoyable reading.
October 12th, 2010 at 9:58 pm
Curt
I’ve always argued that it was as much language and approach that marked the real difference between hard boiled and classical detective stories as anything. You could very easily make a few changes in THE MALTESE FALCON and write either a formal Golden Age mystery or a Buchanesque thriller — and the changes wouldn’t be all that drastic.
As for the femme fatale of the hard boiled school she has her roots in Haggard’s She and Le Fanu’s Carmilla and a few others from Shakespeare on (Dumas Milady di Winter pops to mind), and not that far removed from Irene Adler, Leblanc’s Josephine Balsamo, Sapper’s Irma Peterson, or Buchan’s Hilda Von Enmen really. LeQueux and Oppenheim’s books are filled with ladies in black velvet who are of dubious morals — or at least pose as such. The hard boiled hero may react a bit more enthusiastically to her and be a bit less disturbed by her lack of morals, but the type is as old as Circe in seducing Odysseus or Deliah seducing Samson.
The real difference with the hard boiled school is in the language and approach, the man on the street level appeal and reverse snobbery, as well as a generally more realistic approach to violence, motive, and method.
But the claims to realism are at best exaggerated and at worst out and out false, or else hard boiled fiction would read less like a distillation of Twain, Hemingway, Nick Carter, and Jack London and more like Theodore Dreiser and Henry James.
October 14th, 2010 at 7:36 pm
Curt,
Great list! I’ve read three-quarters of them: all but Crofts’s BOX OFFICE MURDERS; Freeman’s SHADOW OF THE WOLF; Gilbert’s MURDER OF MRS. DAVENPORT; Gore-Browne’s MURDER OF AN M.P. (I have DEATH ON DELIVERY); Kitchin’s DEATH OF MY AUNT; Phillpotts’s GREY ROOM (what – not the RED REDMAYNES?); P.R. Shore’s BOLT (never heard of him – must see if I can get his books on inter-library loan); Wallace’s CRIMSON CIRCLE; Whitechurch’s CRIME AT DIANA’S POOL; and Wynne’s MYSTERY OF THE EVIL EYE.
What about Berkeley, though? I noticed you didn’t have SILK STOCKING, POISONED CHOCOLATES, or THE PICCADILLY MURDER on your list.
There’s Bush, as well, although his two best books – CUT THROAT and APRIL FOOLS – were written in the early 1930s. PERFECT MURDER CASE is clever, though, and arguably an influence on Christie’s LORD EDGWARE DIES.
I’d also include THE MAN FROM THE RIVER, my second favourite of the Coles’ books after MILLIONAIRE, and SUPERINTENDENT WILSON’S HOLIDAY (on the strength of “In a Telephone Cabinet” alone); possibly also CROME HOUSE. I would have included BROOKLYN, but it leans *very* heavily on THE CASK.
I’m also surprised you didn’t include LORD PETER VIEWS THE BODY, which is one of the best short story collections, full of imagination, and written with tongue firmly in cheek. HANGMAN’S HOLIDAY may have the better plots (the Mr. Egg stories have some of her tightest plots), but doesn’t have the verve of the earlier collection.
Connington was fairly well received in the States in the early ’20s, I think. Hammett (!) praised TWO TICKETS, and both Will Cuppy and Isaac Anderson liked him. (I was astonished to see that Chandler, who believed that realism was the most important thing, enjoyed Innes, possibly the most artificial detective writer of all.)
Looking forward to the 1930s list!
Nick
October 14th, 2010 at 7:58 pm
Nick,
If I were to say I’ve read half of the books on Curt’s list, I’d really be stretching it, and here you come along add some more, although I am about halfway through Berkeley’s CHOCOLATE book right now, even as I type this.
I’m somewhat better off with Curt’s Golden Age list, 1930s and later, and there’s no need to wait. It’s already been posted.
Check it out at https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=4954 .
I hope you’ll leave a comment with your reactions to these as well.
— Steve
October 15th, 2010 at 2:49 pm
I have various issues with Anthony Berkeley from a detection standpoint. So many of his books seem designed to undermine the idea of true detection: The Poisoned Chocolates Case, with its endlessly malleable solutions, Piccadilly Murder, with all the focus on its weak “detective,” the various cases where Roger Sheringham comes up with the wrong answer. Silk Stocking I didn’t enjoy because so much of of it is based on AB’s ideas of psychology and the psychology is risible.
Yet Poisoned Chocolates Case was praised by Haycraft and Symons in strong terms and tends to be the one book of AB detection that shows up on lists (along with the Francis Iles books). If it were up to me I’d go with something from the 1930s, maybe Top Storey Murder (though Roger gets it wrong again) or surely Not to be Taken, which is the straightest detection he wrote. I like Jumping Jenny, but it’s a twist in the tail tale, not really detection.
October 15th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
Oh, on Sayers and the Lord Peter collection, I thought about including that (or collections by the Coles, Christie or Wynne), but I was just doing four story collection so really had to pare it. I really enjoyed the Lord Peter collection the first time I read it, not as much the second time, but it’s been a while since I’ve read it.
I also thought about including Sayers’ Bellona Club with the novels, but haven’t reread recently. I excluded Clouds of Witness, because I didn’t feel the traditional country house mystery structure best suited her talents. Sayers had something of a John Rhode mind. How? is usually the most interesting question in her tales.
January 7th, 2015 at 12:29 pm
A very good list. I’ve read most of the books listed and I’ve read and enjoyed many of the novels of Lynn Brock, Austin Freeman, F.W. Crofts, John Rhode, Henry Wade, J.J. Connington, Agatha Christie, Kitchin, Dorothy Sayers and Punshon. I also like Mason, the Coles, Milne, Eden Phillpotts and H.C. Bailey.
I’ve never read Anthony Wynne, P.R. Shore, Victor Whitechurch or Gore-Brown.
Right now I’m re-reading J.S. Fletcher’s best novel, “The Middle Temple Murder.”
Just over the past few weeks, I’ve read “The Robthorne Mystery” by John Rhode, a Lynn Brock and two Conningtons.
Tried reading a Gladys Mitchell novel but lost interest.