Historical whodunnit
Encyclopedia
The historical whodunnit is a sub-genre of historical fiction
which bears elements of the classical mystery novel, in which the central plot involves a crime (almost always a murder) and the setting has some historical significance. One of the big areas of debate within the community of fans is what makes a given setting historical. Most (but not all) agree that it should involve a time before the book was published. But how much before? 25 years? 50 years? 100 years? All have their proponents. Others think the setting should be X number of years before the author's lifetime, or before the readers' lifetime. There's also a lot of debate over how much historical accuracy is required to make a given setting historical rather than fantasy
or alternate history or really just a modern story in fancy dress. While there has to be some elements of real life history to the setting under most definitions, the "detective" may be a real-life historical figure, e.g. Socrates
, Jane Austen
, Mozart
, or a wholly imaginary character.
Near contemporaries Melville Davisson Post
and Anna Katherine Green wrote the earliest known stories that might be described as historical whodunnits, although both also wrote mysteries with contemporary settings as well. Post
is best known for his historical detective "Uncle Abner", who appeared in stories that were serialized in American newspapers from 1911 onwards. It was not until 1943 that Lillian de la Torre
, an American mystery writer, did something similar with Dr Johnson
and Boswell
, casting the two famous literary figures into roles similar to Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. In 1944 Agatha Christie
published Death Comes as the End
, a mystery set in ancient Egypt, possibly the first full-length historical whodunnit. In 1950, John Dickson Carr
produced a novel called The Bride of Newgate
, set at the close of the Napoleonic Wars
, possibly the second full-length historical whodunnit. Josephine Tey
brought out The Daughter of Time
, in which a police detective alleviates a stay in hospital by investigating the case of Richard III of England
and the Princes in the Tower
, a year later. While it is not strictly speaking a historical whodunnit according to most definitions, a large number of fans of the genre cite it as the book that got them interested in the concept. Georgette Heyer
is generally thought of as the author of regency romance
novels, but a number of her books, such as The Talisman Ring
(1936), can be considered historical mysteries with a romance subplot.
Such stories subsequently remained an oddity, with the current trend for historical whodunnits only really beginning in the late 1970s with the success of Ellis Peters and her Brother Cadfael novels, set in medieval Shrewsbury
. Umberto Eco
's The Name of the Rose
(1980) was a one-off that helped popularise the concept. Although authors such as Anne Perry
wrote in the genre during the next decade, it wasn't until about 1990 that the genre's popularity saw a fairly quick ascent with works such as Lindsey Davis
's Falco
novels, set in the Roman Empire
of Vespasian
; Elizabeth Peters's Amelia Peabody
novels, in which the main character is not only a Victorian lady but an early feminist and an archaeologist working in early 20th century Egypt
; Steven Saylor
's "Roma Sub Rosa
" novels, set in the Roman Republic
at the time of Julius Caesar
; John Maddox Roberts
's SPQR series
set during the Roman Republic
; and P. C. Doherty's various series, including The Sorrowful Mysteries of Brother Athelstan, the Hugh Corbett medieval mysteries, partly indebted to the hardboiled
tradition, and the Canterbury Tales of Mystery and Murder.
Two of the newer trends in the genre are books with a split setting (i.e., a modern story framing action that occurs in one or more past settings) and books where all of the action occurs in the present but the puzzle to be solved is all about elements from the past. Much of the popularity of these sorts of stories, which are not considered historical whodunnits by everyone in the genre, is driven by the runaway success of Dan Brown
's The Da Vinci Code
and its prequel, Angels and Demons
, and various copycat titles.
Historical fiction
Historical fiction tells a story that is set in the past. That setting is usually real and drawn from history, and often contains actual historical persons, but the principal characters tend to be fictional...
which bears elements of the classical mystery novel, in which the central plot involves a crime (almost always a murder) and the setting has some historical significance. One of the big areas of debate within the community of fans is what makes a given setting historical. Most (but not all) agree that it should involve a time before the book was published. But how much before? 25 years? 50 years? 100 years? All have their proponents. Others think the setting should be X number of years before the author's lifetime, or before the readers' lifetime. There's also a lot of debate over how much historical accuracy is required to make a given setting historical rather than fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
or alternate history or really just a modern story in fancy dress. While there has to be some elements of real life history to the setting under most definitions, the "detective" may be a real-life historical figure, e.g. Socrates
Socrates
Socrates was a classical Greek Athenian philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of his contemporary ...
, Jane Austen
Jane Austen
Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Austen lived...
, Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
, or a wholly imaginary character.
Near contemporaries Melville Davisson Post
Melville Davisson Post
Melville Davisson Post was an American author, born in Harrison County, West Virginia. His family settled in the Clarksburg, West Virginia area in the late 18th Century. He earned a law degree from West Virginia University in 1892, and was married in 1903 to Ann Bloomfield Gamble Schofield. Their...
and Anna Katherine Green wrote the earliest known stories that might be described as historical whodunnits, although both also wrote mysteries with contemporary settings as well. Post
Melville Davisson Post
Melville Davisson Post was an American author, born in Harrison County, West Virginia. His family settled in the Clarksburg, West Virginia area in the late 18th Century. He earned a law degree from West Virginia University in 1892, and was married in 1903 to Ann Bloomfield Gamble Schofield. Their...
is best known for his historical detective "Uncle Abner", who appeared in stories that were serialized in American newspapers from 1911 onwards. It was not until 1943 that Lillian de la Torre
Lillian de la Torre
Lillian de la Torre was an American novelist and a prolific writer of historical mysteries. Her name is a pseudonym for Lillian de la Torre Bueno McCue....
, an American mystery writer, did something similar with Dr Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
and Boswell
James Boswell
James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck was a lawyer, diarist, and author born in Edinburgh, Scotland; he is best known for the biography he wrote of one of his contemporaries, the English literary figure Samuel Johnson....
, casting the two famous literary figures into roles similar to Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. In 1944 Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
published Death Comes as the End
Death Comes as the End
Death Comes as the End is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie, first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in October 1944 and in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in March of the following year...
, a mystery set in ancient Egypt, possibly the first full-length historical whodunnit. In 1950, John Dickson Carr
John Dickson Carr
John Dickson Carr was an American author of detective stories, who also published under the pen names Carter Dickson, Carr Dickson and Roger Fairbairn....
produced a novel called The Bride of Newgate
The Bride of Newgate
The Bride of Newgate, first published in 1950, is a historical whodunnit story by John Dickson Carr which does not feature any of Carr's series detectives. This novel is a mystery of the type known as a whodunnit and also a historical novel set in 1815 in England...
, set at the close of the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
, possibly the second full-length historical whodunnit. Josephine Tey
Josephine Tey
Josephine Tey was a pseudonym used by Elizabeth Mackintosh a Scottish author best known for her mystery novels. She also wrote as Gordon Daviot, under which name she wrote plays with an historical theme....
brought out The Daughter of Time
The Daughter of Time
The Daughter of Time is a 1951 novel by Josephine Tey concerning King Richard III of England. It was the last book Tey published, shortly before her death.-Plot summary:...
, in which a police detective alleviates a stay in hospital by investigating the case of Richard III of England
Richard III of England
Richard III was King of England for two years, from 1483 until his death in 1485 during the Battle of Bosworth Field. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty...
and the Princes in the Tower
Princes in the Tower
The Princes in the Tower is a term which refers to Edward V of England and Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke of York. The two brothers were the only sons of Edward IV of England and Elizabeth Woodville alive at the time of their father's death...
, a year later. While it is not strictly speaking a historical whodunnit according to most definitions, a large number of fans of the genre cite it as the book that got them interested in the concept. Georgette Heyer
Georgette Heyer
Georgette Heyer was a British historical romance and detective fiction novelist. Her writing career began in 1921, when she turned a story for her younger brother into the novel The Black Moth. In 1925 Heyer married George Ronald Rougier, a mining engineer...
is generally thought of as the author of regency romance
Regency romance
Regency romances are a subgenre of romance novels set during the period of the British Regency or early 19th century. Rather than simply being versions of contemporary romance stories transported to a historical setting, Regency romances are a distinct genre with their own plot and stylistic...
novels, but a number of her books, such as The Talisman Ring
The Talisman Ring
The Talisman Ring is a historical romance novel by Georgette Heyer, first published in 1936. Set in 1793, in the Georgian era, the action takes place in Sussex, where Heyer then lived....
(1936), can be considered historical mysteries with a romance subplot.
Such stories subsequently remained an oddity, with the current trend for historical whodunnits only really beginning in the late 1970s with the success of Ellis Peters and her Brother Cadfael novels, set in medieval Shrewsbury
Shrewsbury
Shrewsbury is the county town of Shropshire, in the West Midlands region of England. Lying on the River Severn, it is a civil parish home to some 70,000 inhabitants, and is the primary settlement and headquarters of Shropshire Council...
. Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco Knight Grand Cross is an Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose , an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory...
's The Name of the Rose
The Name of the Rose
The Name of the Rose is the first novel by Italian author Umberto Eco. It is a historical murder mystery set in an Italian monastery in the year 1327, an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory...
(1980) was a one-off that helped popularise the concept. Although authors such as Anne Perry
Anne Perry
Anne Perry is an English author of historical detective fiction. Perry was convicted of the murder of her friend's mother in 1954.-Early life:Born Juliet Marion Hulme in Blackheath, London, the daughter of Dr...
wrote in the genre during the next decade, it wasn't until about 1990 that the genre's popularity saw a fairly quick ascent with works such as Lindsey Davis
Lindsey Davis
Lindsey Davis is an English historical novelist, best known as the author of the Falco series of crime stories set in ancient Rome and its empire.-Biography:...
's Falco
Marcus Didius Falco
Marcus Didius Falco is the central character and narrator in a series of novels by Lindsey Davis. Using the concepts of modern detective stories , Davis portrays the world of the Roman Empire under Vespasian...
novels, set in the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
of Vespasian
Vespasian
Vespasian , was Roman Emperor from 69 AD to 79 AD. Vespasian was the founder of the Flavian dynasty, which ruled the Empire for a quarter century. Vespasian was descended from a family of equestrians, who rose into the senatorial rank under the Emperors of the Julio-Claudian dynasty...
; Elizabeth Peters's Amelia Peabody
Amelia Peabody series
The Amelia Peabody series is a series of mystery novels written by Elizabeth Peters featuring Egyptologist Amelia Peabody Emerson, for whom the series is named. The novels are intended as a blend of parody , mystery, and comedy...
novels, in which the main character is not only a Victorian lady but an early feminist and an archaeologist working in early 20th century Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
; Steven Saylor
Steven Saylor
Steven Saylor is an American author of historical novels. He is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, where he studied history and Classics....
's "Roma Sub Rosa
Roma Sub Rosa
Roma Sub Rosa is the title of the series of mystery novels by Steven Saylor set in, and populated by, noteworthy denizens of ancient Rome. The series is noted for its historical authenticity. The phrase "Roma Sub Rosa" means, in Latin, "Rome under the rose"...
" novels, set in the Roman Republic
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic was the period of the ancient Roman civilization where the government operated as a republic. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally dated around 508 BC, and its replacement by a government headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and...
at the time of Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
; John Maddox Roberts
John Maddox Roberts
John Maddox Roberts is an author who has written many science fiction and fantasy novels, including his successful historical fiction, such as the SPQR series and Hannibal's Children....
's SPQR series
SPQR series
The SPQR series is a collection of detective stories by John Maddox Roberts set in the time of the Roman Republic. SPQR is a Latin initialism for Senatus Populusque Romanus , the official name of the Republic.The stories are told in first-person form by Senator Decius...
set during the Roman Republic
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic was the period of the ancient Roman civilization where the government operated as a republic. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally dated around 508 BC, and its replacement by a government headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and...
; and P. C. Doherty's various series, including The Sorrowful Mysteries of Brother Athelstan, the Hugh Corbett medieval mysteries, partly indebted to the hardboiled
Hardboiled
Hardboiled crime fiction is a literary style, most commonly associated with detective stories, distinguished by the unsentimental portrayal of violence and sex. The style was pioneered by Carroll John Daly in the mid-1920s, popularized by Dashiell Hammett over the course of the decade, and refined...
tradition, and the Canterbury Tales of Mystery and Murder.
Two of the newer trends in the genre are books with a split setting (i.e., a modern story framing action that occurs in one or more past settings) and books where all of the action occurs in the present but the puzzle to be solved is all about elements from the past. Much of the popularity of these sorts of stories, which are not considered historical whodunnits by everyone in the genre, is driven by the runaway success of Dan Brown
Dan Brown
Dan Brown is an American author of thriller fiction, best known for the 2003 bestselling novel, The Da Vinci Code. Brown's novels, which are treasure hunts set in a 24-hour time period, feature the recurring themes of cryptography, keys, symbols, codes, and conspiracy theories...
's The Da Vinci Code
The Da Vinci Code
The Da Vinci Code is a 2003 mystery-detective novel written by Dan Brown. It follows symbologist Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu as they investigate a murder in Paris's Louvre Museum and discover a battle between the Priory of Sion and Opus Dei over the possibility of Jesus having been married to...
and its prequel, Angels and Demons
Angels and Demons
Angels & Demons is a 2000 bestselling mystery-thriller novel written by American author Dan Brown and published by Pocket Books. The novel introduces the character Robert Langdon, who is also the protagonist of Brown's subsequent 2003 novel, The Da Vinci Code, and 2009 novel, The Lost Symbol...
, and various copycat titles.