Suspicious deaths in small villages, locked-room mysteries, fatalities at glamorous parties held in a country manor – the golden age of crime writing saw the emergence of some of the most recognizable themes and fiendish plots in crime fiction. Yet many of this era’s works fell out of print during the latter part of the 20th century.
Remedying that is the British Library, which expanded its publishing programme in 2014 to bring the detective novels popularized between the 1920s and 1950s to a modern audience. Building on its long-established reputation for bringing to the fore ‘original, previously unpublished or undeservedly neglected’ material from its extensive holdings, the Library has now reissued over 100 titles in its Crime Classics series, giving each one distinctive cover artwork that reflects the story’s setting, whether the London Underground or an unsuspecting rural community.
Among these authors are several who helped shape the genre itself, some of whom were only in their twenties when they embarked on their writing career. As series editor Martin Edwards points out in his introduction to Alan Melville’s Death of Anton, published when he was 26, it is perhaps their relative youth that ‘helps to explain why they were able to write about the serious business of murder with an irrepressible joie de vivre.’
Here are just some of the notable names whose work has been reprised by the imprint.
John Dickson Carr
John Dickson Carr (1906–1977) debuted in 1930 with It Walks by Night, the story of an unseen murder in a Paris gambling house. He soon became known as the master of the seemingly impossible ‘locked-room mystery’ and his 1935 book The Hollow Man is still considered one of the foremost examples of the genre.
Incredibly prolific, Carr wrote up to six books a year and over 70 in his lifetime, many featuring the characters of Dr Fell, modelled on philosopher and fellow writer GK Chesterton, or Sir Henry Merrivale, a barrister known for his colourful language. Carr also penned the Gothic whodunnit Castle Skull and an award-winning biography of Arthur Conan Doyle; the latter followed by The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes, co-written with Doyle’s son Adrian.
Josephine Bell
Writing under the pseudonym Josephine Bell, Doris Bell Collier (1897–1987) was a qualified doctor and, after her husband died in 1936, she founded a general practice in Guildford. A year later she published Murder in Hospital, her first novel featuring physician/detective Dr David Wintringham. Bell continued writing extensively throughout her life and published 64 mystery and crime novels including The Port of London Murders. She also played a key role in founding the Crime Writers’ Association in 1953, and chaired the committee from 1959 to 1960.
Julian Symons
Julian Symons (1912–1994) began writing seriously once the Second World War ended, after having been a conscientious objector. He was widely recognized for his ability to combine the established elements of detective fiction with more modern considerations of character and psychology.
In addition to receiving the Edgar Award for his 1960 novel The Progress of a Crime, Symons was bestowed the honour of Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America in 1982 – only the fourth English writer to achieve such an accolade. Symons was also President of the Detection Club of British mystery writers, succeeding Agatha Christie to hold the position from 1976 to 1985.
ECR Lorac
ECR Lorac (1894–1958) was just one of Edith Caroline Rivett’s pseudonyms, but it was the one she used the most. Lorac’s debut detective novel, The Murder on the Burrows, was published in 1931; Chief Inspector Robert Macdonald continued to feature regularly in her work over the next three decades. Lorac is now one of the most popular authors in the British Library’s Classic Crime series, and it was under their imprint that her book Two-Way Murder – which had been lost for sixty years – was finally published in 2021.
John Bude
Under the pen name John Bude, theatre producer and writer Ernest Elmore (1901–1957) published 30 novels between 1935 and 1958, most featuring Inspector William Meredith. The character was established in The Lake District Murder (1935) and appeared, almost annually, in a further 22 books in the series; Bude’s other works included standalone novels and, intriguingly, a book for children.
