"Depending on who you ask, the term ""whodunit"" was first coined sometime around 1930, but the literary form predates that name by several decades. Still, it was in the years between the two World Wars-the so-called ""Golden Age"" of mystery fiction-that the style flourished. Short mysteries were published far and wide by a variety of authors, not just those primarily associated with the genre. They appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, Cosmopolitan, The New Yorker, and other high-end periodicals that still exist today. These tales were, in short, among the most popular diversions in literature and were of the highest caliber.
In this volume, Edgar Award–winning anthologist Otto Penzler collects some of the finest American whodunits of the era, including household names and welcome rediscoveries. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ellery Queen, and Mary Roberts Rinehart are all included, as are Ring Lardner, Melville Davisson Post, and Helen Reilly. The result is a cross section of the whodunit tale in the years that made it a staple in mystery fiction."
By:
Otto Penzler
Imprint: Penzler Publishers
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 211mm,
Width: 145mm,
Spine: 36mm
Weight: 557g
ISBN: 9781613165416
ISBN 10: 1613165412
Pages: 408
Publication Date: 02 July 2024
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Stephen Vincent Benet, “The Amateur of Crime” Anthony Boucher, “Black Murder” Fredric Brown, “Crisis, 1999” Mignon G. Eberhart, “The Flowering Face” F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Dance” C. Daly King, “The Episode of the Tangible Illusion” Ring Lardner, “Haircut” Stuart Palmer, “Fingerprints Don’t Lie” Melville Davisson Post, “The Witness in the Metal Box” Ellery Queen, “Man Bites Dog” Clayton Rawson, “The Clue of the Tattooed Man” Helen Reilly, “The Phonograph Murder” Mary Roberts Rinehart, “The Lipstick” Vincent Starrett, “Too Many Sleuths” T.S. Stribling, “A Passage to Benares”
Otto Penzler is the proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop (www.mysteriousbookshop.com) in New York City and is regarded as the world's foremost authority on crime, mystery and suspense fiction. He founded The Mysterious Press in 1975, which he later sold to Warner Books (1989). He reacquired the imprint in 2010 and it now publishes original books as an imprint at Grove/Atlantic, and both original works and classic crime fiction through MysteriousPress.com (www.mysteriouspress.com), in partnership with Open Road Integrated Media. Penzler is a prolific editor, and has won two Edgar Awards, for Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection in 1977 and The Lineup in 2010. The Mystery Writers of America awarded him the prestigious Ellery Queen Award in 1994 and the Raven--the group's highest non-writing award--in 2003.
Reviews for Golden Age Whodunits
"""Superb … This is a perfect introduction for those new to this particular subgenre."" -- Publishers Weekly starred review for Golden Age Locked Room Mysteries"
