Golden Age Whodunits
American Mystery Classics · Paperback · July 2, 2024
Depending on who you ask, the term "whodunit" was first coined sometime around 1930, but the literary form predates that name by several decades.
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- Who it’s for
- A compact, polished sampler for lingering over classic mystery habits and pleasures.
- Genres
- Mystery Anthologies, British Mystery, Short Story Anthologies
- Published
- American Mystery Classics, July 2, 2024
Nearest books
Matched by what the books are about, then ordered by what their readers also loved. Most of these share its genres: Mystery Anthologies and Short Story Anthologies.
Golden Age Detective StoriesOtto Penzler77% matchAlso shares British Mystery
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The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of the Year: 2024Otto Penzler - editor foreword, Anthony Horowitz - editor introduction66% match
Black Orchids/the Silent SpeakerRex Stout49% matchAlso shares British Mystery
The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2022Sara Paretsky - editor and introduction, Otto Penzler - series editor54% match
The D.a. Calls It MurderErle Stanley Gardner52% matchAlso shares British Mystery
The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2022Jess Walter, Steph Cha51% match
Christmas Crimes at the Mysterious BookshopOtto Penzler, Jason Starr54% match
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Start with this bookAbout this book
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.
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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.
Classic Cases
A compact, polished sampler for lingering over classic mystery habits and pleasures.
Come here for
- Golden Age mystery shorthand
- short-story sleuthing
Expect
- anthology pacing
- cultural touchstones
Where it sits
| Mystery Anthologies | 93% |
|---|---|
| Short Story Anthologies | 56% |
| British Mystery | 38% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- British Mystery
- Mystery Anthologies
- Amateur Sleuths
- Authors
- Otto Penzler
- Publisher
- American Mystery Classics
- Published
- July 2, 2024
- Format
- Paperback
- Reading lane
- British Mystery