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The Golden Age of Detective Fiction was an era of classic murder mystery novels produced by various authors, all following similar patterns and style.

Examples
The classic detective story originates from 1841, when the American
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 writer Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was an American poet, Short story writer, Editing and Literary criticism, and is considered part of the American Romanticism. Best known for his tales of Mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the Detective fiction genre....
 published his masterpiece, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue
The Murders in the Rue Morgue

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe published in Graham's Magazine in 1841. It has been claimed as the first detective fiction; Poe referred to it as one of his "tales of wikt:ratiocination"....
", featuring the first ever literary sleuth, C. Auguste Dupin; another example is Wilkie Collins
Wilkie Collins

William Wilkie Collins was an English people novelist, playwright, and author of short stories. He was hugely popular in his time, and wrote 27 novels, more than 50 short stories, at least 15 plays, and over 100 pieces of non-fiction work....
' "The Moonstone
The Moonstone

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins is a 19th-century United Kingdom epistolary novel, generally considered the first detective novel in the English language....
" in 1868. The culminating achievement of the early school was the Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who first appeared in publication in 1887. He is the creation of Scotland-born author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle....
 stories of Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, Deputy Lieutenant was a Scotland author most noted for his stories about the Detective fiction Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered a major innovation in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger....
, which formed the model for the Golden Age in general.

The Golden Age proper is in practice usually taken to refer to a type of fiction which was predominant in the 1920s and 1930s but had been written since at least 1911 and is still being written -- though in much smaller numbers -- today.






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The Golden Age of Detective Fiction was an era of classic murder mystery novels produced by various authors, all following similar patterns and style.

Examples


The classic detective story originates from 1841, when the American
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 writer Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was an American poet, Short story writer, Editing and Literary criticism, and is considered part of the American Romanticism. Best known for his tales of Mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the Detective fiction genre....
 published his masterpiece, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue
The Murders in the Rue Morgue

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe published in Graham's Magazine in 1841. It has been claimed as the first detective fiction; Poe referred to it as one of his "tales of wikt:ratiocination"....
", featuring the first ever literary sleuth, C. Auguste Dupin; another example is Wilkie Collins
Wilkie Collins

William Wilkie Collins was an English people novelist, playwright, and author of short stories. He was hugely popular in his time, and wrote 27 novels, more than 50 short stories, at least 15 plays, and over 100 pieces of non-fiction work....
' "The Moonstone
The Moonstone

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins is a 19th-century United Kingdom epistolary novel, generally considered the first detective novel in the English language....
" in 1868. The culminating achievement of the early school was the Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who first appeared in publication in 1887. He is the creation of Scotland-born author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle....
 stories of Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, Deputy Lieutenant was a Scotland author most noted for his stories about the Detective fiction Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered a major innovation in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger....
, which formed the model for the Golden Age in general.

The Golden Age proper is in practice usually taken to refer to a type of fiction which was predominant in the 1920s and 1930s but had been written since at least 1911 and is still being written -- though in much smaller numbers -- today. The critic Julian Symons
Julian Symons

Julian Gustave Symons was a United Kingdom crime writer and poet. He also wrote social and military history, biography and studies of literature....
, in his history of the detective story, titles two chapters devoted to the Golden Age as "the Twenties" and "the Thirties"; he notes that Philip Van Doren Stern's article, "The Case of the Corpse in the Blind Alley" (1941) "could serve ... as an obituary for the Golden Age."

Most of the authors of the Golden Age were British: Margery Allingham
Margery Allingham

Margery Louise Allingham was an England crime writer born in Ealing, London, who produced many novels, Short story and Play , mainly in the detective fiction and Mystery fiction genres....
 (1904 - 1966), Anthony Berkeley (aka Francis Iles) (1893 - 1971), Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie

Agatha Mary Clarissa, Lady Mallowan, Order of the British Empire , commonly known as Agatha Christie, was an English people crime writer of novels, short stories and Play ....
 (1890 - 1976), Freeman Wills Crofts
Freeman Wills Crofts

Freeman Wills Crofts was an Irish people-English people mystery author, one of the 'Big Four' of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction....
 (1879-1957), R. Austin Freeman (1862-1943), Michael Innes (1906–1993), Philip MacDonald
Philip MacDonald

Philip MacDonald was an England author of Thriller . He was the grandson of the writer George MacDonald and son of the author Ronald MacDonald and the actress Constance Robertson....
 (1900–1980), Ngaio Marsh
Ngaio Marsh

Dame Ngaio Marsh British honours system , born Edith Ngaio Marsh, was a crime writer and theatre director from New Zealand. There is some uncertainty over her birth date as her father neglected to register her birth until 1900....
 (1895 - 1982), Dorothy L. Sayers
Dorothy L. Sayers

Dorothy Leigh Sayers was a renowned United Kingdom author, translator and Christian humanism. She was also a student of classical and modern languages....
 (1893 - 1957), Josephine Tey
Josephine Tey

Josephine Tey was one of many pseudonyms used by Elizabeth Mackintosh a Scottish people author best known for her mystery novels....
 (1896 - 1952), and many more. Some of them, such as John Dickson Carr
John Dickson Carr

John Dickson Carr was an United States author of detective stories, who also published under the pen names Carter Dickson, Carr Dickson and Roger Fairbairn....
, Ellery Queen
Ellery Queen

File:Ellery Queen NYWTS.jpgEllery Queen is both a fictional character and a pseudonym used by two American cousins from Brooklyn, New York: Daniel Nathan, alias Frederic Dannay and Manford Lepofsky, alias Manfred Bennington Lee , to write detective fiction....
, and S. S. Van Dine
S. S. Van Dine

S. S. Van Dine was the pseudonym of Willard Huntington Wright , a United States of America art critic and author. He created the once immensely popular fictional detective Philo Vance, who first appeared in books in the 1920s, then in movies and on the radio....
, were American but had a similar style (others such as Raymond Chandler
Raymond Chandler

Raymond Thornton Chandler was an United States crime fiction, who had an immense stylistic influence upon the modern private eye story, especially in the style of the writing and the attitudes now characteristic of the genre....
 had a more "American" style).

Description of the genre


Certain conventions and clichés were established that limited any surprises on the part of the reader to the details of the plot and, primarily, to the identity of the murderer. The majority of novels of that era were "whodunit
Whodunit

A whodunit or whodunnit is a complex, plot-driven variety of the detective fiction in which the puzzle is the main feature of interest. The reader is provided with clues from which the identity of the perpetrator of the crime may be deduced before the solution is revealed in the final pages of the book....
s", and several authors excelled, after misleading their readers successfully, in revealing the least likely suspect convincingly as the villain. There was also a predilection for certain casts of characters and certain settings, with the secluded English country house and its upper-class inhabitants being very common.

The rules of the game – and Golden Age mysteries were considered games – were codified during 1929 by Ronald Knox
Ronald Knox

Monsignor. Ronald Arbuthnott Knox was an England theology, priest and crime writer....
. According to Knox, a detective story
"must have as its main interest the unravelling of a mystery; a mystery whose elements are clearly presented to the reader at an early stage in the proceedings, and whose nature is such as to arouse curiosity, a curiosity which is gratified at the end."
His "Ten Commandments" (or "Decalogue") are as follows:

  1. The criminal must be mentioned in the early part of the story, but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to know.
  2. All supernatural
    Supernatural

    The term supernatural or supranatural pertains to an order of existence beyond the scientifically visible universe. Religious miracles are typically supernatural claims, as are Spell and curses, divination, the belief that there is an afterlife for the dead, and innumerable others....
     or preternatural
    Preternatural

    The preternatural or praeternatural is that which appears outside or beyond the nature. While this may include what is more commonly called the supernatural, it may also simply indicate extremity ? an ordinary phenomenon taken 'beyond' the natural....
     agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.
  3. Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable.
  4. No hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which will need a long scientific explanation at the end.
  5. No Chinaman must figure in the story.
  6. No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right.
  7. The detective himself must not commit the crime.
  8. The detective is bound to declare any clues which he may discover.
  9. The stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal from the reader any thoughts which pass through his mind: his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly, below that of the average reader.
  10. Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them.


A similar but more detailed list of prerequisites was prepared by S. S. Van Dine
S. S. Van Dine

S. S. Van Dine was the pseudonym of Willard Huntington Wright , a United States of America art critic and author. He created the once immensely popular fictional detective Philo Vance, who first appeared in books in the 1920s, then in movies and on the radio....
 in an article entitled Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories which appeared in the American Magazine
American Magazine

The American Magazine was a periodical publication founded in June 1906 in literature, stemming from failed publications purchased a few years earlier from publishing mogul Miriam Leslie....
 in September 1928.

Decline and fall


The outbreak of the Second World War is often taken as a beginning of the end for the light-hearted, straightforward "whodunnit" of the Golden Age. But as Ian Ousby writes (The Crime and Mystery Book, 1997), the Golden Age

"was a long time a-dying. Indeed, one could argue that it still is not dead, since its mannerisms have proved stubbornly persistent in writers one might have expected to abandon them altogether as dated, or worse. Yet the Second World War marked a significant close, just as the First World War
World War I

World War I, or the First World War , was a global military conflict which involved the Great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War I and the Central Powers....
 had marked a significant beginning.
Only during the inter-war years, and particularly in the 1920s, did Golden Age fiction have the happy innocence, the purity and confidence of purpose, which was its true hallmark.
Even by the 1930s its assumptions were being challenged. [...] Where it had once been commonplace to view the Golden Age as a high watermark of achievement, it became equally the fashion to denounce it. It had, so the indictment ran, followed rules which trivialized its subject. It had preferred settings which expressed a narrow, if not deliberately elitist, vision of society. And for heroes it had created detectives at best two-dimensional, at worst tiresome."


Despite beginning his career as an author of several successful collections of Golden Age stories, the influential critic Julian Symons
Julian Symons

Julian Gustave Symons was a United Kingdom crime writer and poet. He also wrote social and military history, biography and studies of literature....
 became highly dismissive of the classical detective story and probably did as much to kill it as anyone, extolling in its place 'psychological' stories like those of Francis Iles, usually based in suburbia and involving allegedly 'realistic' lower-middle-class characters. "If we consider the crime story only as a puzzle, nothing written in the last twenty years (before 1972) comes within trailing distance of the best Golden Age work, although it should be said that little attempts to do so. ... " Other attacks have been made by Edmund Wilson (Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?) and Raymond Chandler (The Simple Art of Murder). But in sheer number of sales -- particularly those of Agatha Christie, its leading light -- modern detective fiction has never approached the popularity of Golden Age writing.

"Every so often somebody reprises Edmund Wilson's famous put-down of detective novels, "Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?" Wilson regarded the genre as terminally subliterary, either an addiction or a harmless vice on a par with crossword puzzles. But the truth is that for every Edmund Wilson who resists the genre there are dozens of intellectuals who have embraced it wholeheartedly. The enduring highbrow appeal of the detective novel ... is one of the literary marvels of the century."


Enduring influence


Current writing influenced by the Golden Age style is often referred to as "cosy" mystery writing, as distinct from the "hardboiled
Hardboiled

Hardboiled crime fiction is a literary style distinguished by an unsentimental portrayal of crime, violence, and sex.Pioneered by Carroll John Daly in the mid-1920s, popularized by Dashiell Hammett over the course of the decade, and refined by Raymond Chandler beginning in the late 1930s, hardboiled fiction is most commonly associated wit...
" style popular in America. Recent writers working in this style include Sarah Caudwell
Sarah Caudwell

Sarah Caudwell was a barrister and writer of detective stories, born Sarah Cockburn in Cheltenham, UK.She is best known for a series of four murder stories written between 1980 and 1999, centred around the lives of a group of young barristers practicing in Lincoln?s Inn and narrated by a Hilary Tamar, a Professor of Medieval Law , wh...
, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Peter Lovesey
Peter Lovesey

Peter Lovesey is a British writer of historical and contemporary crime novels and short stories. His best-known series characters are Sergeant Cribb, a Victorian era-era police detective based in London, and Peter Diamond, a modern-day police detective in Bath, Somerset....
 and Simon Brett
Simon Brett

Simon Brett is a prolific writer of whodunnits. Brett worked for BBC Radio and London Weekend Television before devoting most of his time to writing from the late 1970s....
.

The board game
Board game

File:Game_of_life_board.jpgA board game is a game in which counters or pieces that are placed on, removed from, or moved across a "board" . As do other form of entertainment, board games can represent nearly any subject....
 Cluedo
Cluedo

Cluedo is a mystery crime fiction board game originally published by Waddingtons in Leeds, United Kingdom in 1949. It was devised by Anthony E....
 relies on the structure of the country-house murder.

Many support groups exist for fans of Golden Age Detective Fiction, including a Golden Age of Detective Fiction Wiki and Yahoo Group.

External links