The Mammoth Book Of Golden Age Detective Stories

Gathers mysteries by Arthur Conan Doyle, Richard Harding Davis, Arnold Bennett, O. Henry, Edgar Wallace, Jack London, and G. K. Chesterton

Hidden gems from the earliest days of mystery fiction. The years 1850-1905 represent the pre-Golden Age of crime writing. Drawn exclusively from those earliest days of mystery fiction, this revealing anthology includes a surprising number of authors not commonly associated today with crime fiction - names like Alexander Dumas, Alexander Pushkin, Charles Dickens, Robert Louis Stephenson, Arnold Bennett, Mark Twain and Rudyard Kipling. Over three-quarters of the stories in this fascinating volume have not been reproduced since the 1950s. They include: Guy de Maupassant's "The Hand"; Charles Dickens's "Hunted Down"; Maurice LeBlanc's gentleman-burglar Arsene Lupin; Conan Doyle's "The Adventures of the Three Students"; Robert Louis Stephenson's "Markheim"; Edgar Poe's Chevaller Auguste Dupin, the first genuine fictional detective; Baroness Orczy's "Old Man in the Corner"; and EW Hornung's immensely popular thief Raffles.

Ever since Sir Arthur Conan Doyle delighted readers with the fictional genius detective, Sherlock Holmes, crime fiction has been plumbed by mystery writers everywhere. This volume of 12 stories spans crime from the Bronze Age to World War II, and will appeal to the current readers of The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures and Best British Mysteries.

H.C. Bailey's detective Reggie Fortune was one of the most popular protagonists of the Golden Age of detective fiction. Fortune appeared in nine novels yet it was in a series of 84 short stories that were published from 1920 to 1940 where he truly shone, combining elements of several popular archetypes--the eccentric logician, the forensic investigator, the hard-boiled interrogator, the psychological profiler, the defender of justice. This critical study examines the Fortune stories in the context of other popular detective fiction of the era. Bailey's classics are distinguished by well-clued puzzles, brilliant sleuthing, vivid description and social critique, with Fortune evoking images of Don Quixote and the Arthurian Knights in his pursuit of truth and justice in an uncaring world.

Our dark past brought to life by leading contemporary crime writers A new generation of crime writers has broadened the genre of crime fiction, creating more human stories of historical realism, with a stronger emphasis on character and the psychology of crime. This superb anthology of 12 novellas encompasses over 4,000 years of our dark, criminal past, from Bronze Age Britain to the eve of the Second World War, with stories set in ancient Greece, Rome, the Byzantine Empire, medieval Venice, seventh-century Ireland and 1930s' New York. A Byzantine icon painter, suddenly out of work when icons are banned, becomes embroiled in a case of deception; Charles Babbage and the young Ada Byron try to crack a coded message and stop a master criminal; and New York detectives are on the lookout for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Deirdre Counihan, Tom Holt, Dorothy Lumley, Richard A. Lupoff, Maan Meyers, Ian Morson, Anne Perry, Tony Pollard, Mary Reed and Eric Mayer, Steven Saylor, Charles Todd, Peter Tremayne

The Golden Age of Science Fiction, from the early 1940s through the 1950s, saw an explosion of talent in SF writing, including authors such as Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, and Arthur C. Clarke. Their writing helped science fiction gain wide public attention, and left a lasting impression upon society. The same writers formed the mold for the next three decades of science fiction, and much of their writing remains as fresh today as it was then.

Pulp fiction has been looked down on as a guilty pleasure, but it offers the perfect form of entertainment: the very best storytelling filled with action, surprises, sound and fury. In short, all the exhiliration of a roller-coaster ride. The 1920s in America saw the proliferation of hundreds of dubiously named but thrillingly entertaining pulp magazines in America – Black Mask, Amazing, Astounding, Spicy Stories, Ace-High, Detective Magazine, Dare-Devil Aces. It was in these luridly-coloured publications, printed on the cheapest pulp paper, that the first gems began to appear. The one golden rule for writers of pulp fiction was to adhere to the art of storytelling. Each story had to have a beginning, an end, economically-etched characters, but plenty going on, both in terms of action and emotions. Pulp magazines were the TV of their day, plucking readers from drab lives and planting them firmly in thrilling make-believe, successors to the Victorian penny dreadfuls of writers such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Charles Dickens. These stories exemplify the best of crime and mystery pulp fiction – its zest, speed, rhythm, verve and commitment to straightforward storytelling – spanning seven decades of popular writing.