DEAR READERS,

With great regret, I must confirm that the cliché “biology is destiny” actually contains some truth. Doctors insist I stop doing a select list of physical chores—including writing. Spines need disks, and several of mine seem to have forgotten their purpose. Thus, after some struggles to resist, I unhappily withdraw from the Criminal Brief crew.

The time spent with this fascinatingly diverse group of writing minds and with you, the reader, has been more fun than I expected, and my expectations were high! All opinions and ventings were my own, so blame no one else for them. I hugely enjoyed tossing them on the table for examination. Thanks for your indulgences, thanks for the laughs. I’m a reader, too, so I’ll still be here, reading!

My husband, Barry T. Zeman, noted historian and bookman, has kindly stepped forward to contribute a few articles in my place. We co-wrote them for AB Bookman’s Weekly, Firsts, and other publications. We hope you enjoy them.

Angela Zeman

THE CORNERSTONES OF CRIME

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by Barry and Angela Zeman

Stories about crimes, puzzles, analysis or deductive reasoning have been around for hundreds of years, but in April 1841, Graham’s, a popular journal of that day, published a short story by its editor that combined these elements, and for the first time presented a “proper” detective in a clear, directed manner: “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” by Edgar Allan Poe. “It was the world’s first detective story,” declared Howard Haycraft in Murder for Pleasure: The Life and Times of the Detective Story.

In truth, it was only the Western world’s first detective story. Robert Van Gulik, author of the wonderful Judge Dee stories, pointed out years later that short stories about crimes and their detectives had existed in China for over a thousand years. These stories did not appear in English speaking countries until the 1950’s. Nonetheless, Mr. Haycraft’s 1941 work itself is also a landmark event, having the distinction of being the first book to explore the history and development of the detective story. It has been acclaimed since as the definitive critical study of the genre. By no means an insignificant feat, it was published on the centennial anniversary of the detective story

Almost 70 years later Haycraft’s work posses even more importance for not only collectors and historians, but also writers and avid readers. Two major reasons stand out: first, Mr. Haycraft researched and discussed key books in the development of the detective story, pinpointing many techniques used for the first time; second, he systematically compiled these key books in what he called a “Reader’s List of Detective Story Cornerstones.” A compendium of dozens of “high spots” of the genre published between 1845 and 1938, it was designed for the “plain reader…unpretentious detective story fans who may care to assemble for their own pleasure cornerstone libraries of the best and most influential writings of the medium.” As an addendum to the list, Haycraft delineated and discussed 16 important anthologies, ranging from the three different Omnibus of Crime books edited by Dorothy Sayers (English titles: Detection, Mystery and Horror: First , Second, and Third Series), to a trio of collaborative: “specialty” books done by the Detection Club of London. For writers, the Haycraft list provides real lessons. Joan Kahn, the premier editor in the mystery field from the 50’s through the 70’s, said that if a writer wants to learn the craft in this genre, reading the best and most important books in the field is essential.

Haycraft used as a basis of definition a theory put forth by John Carter, editor of the landmark New Paths in Book Collecting (1934), that a detective story “must be mainly occupied with detection and must contain a proper detective (whether amateur or professional).” Haycraft reiterated this theme in Murder for Pleasure. For a few years, this tight definition worked but growth and change within the genre brought about a need for change and a new updated perspective. Haycraft, who was President of H.W. Wilson Company, publishers of library and bibliographical works, also served for many years as a reviewer and critic for Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. In 1951, to celebrate EQMM’s tenth anniversary, Mr. Haycraft was asked to update his selections to include books published within the decade following publication of his list. This he did, but limited the additions to those published before 1948, feeling that the books published in the last few years needed the perspective of time to be judged properly.

In the preface to his expanded list, he described the difficulty of selecting the best from a huge number of books dealing with a “process of literary osmosis that all but obliterates the old limitations and demarcations.” As a result, he gave up the strict definition of the pure detective story and agreed that the detective-mystery-crime story had “come of age” and was now the nature of the form. For example, as spy fiction exploded onto the scene with the arrival of World War II, Haycraft included the first two Tony Hambledon adventures by the English team writing under the pseudonym Manning Coles: Drink to Yesterday, and Toast to Tomorrow, both published in 1941 by Knopf and real espionage thrillers rivaling the best of Ambler, Fleming, LeCarré, and Deighton. The latter title was published first in England in 1940 as Pray Silence.

Even though Haycraft significantly expanded his own definition, it took the efforts of Ellery Queen (the writing partnership of Manny Lee and Fred Dannay), editors of EQMM, to get him to yield to what many of us would consider an important part of the genre-fiction written with mysterious or criminal elements, and character studies that “employ crime as a catalyst.” Ellery Queen took a much broader and more widely historical view of important books in the detective-mystery field and with Haycraft’s permission, added their own choices to what became published as the Haycraft-Queen Definitive Library of Detective-Crime-Mystery Fiction: Two Centuries of Cornerstones 1748-1948. A revised (and final) version emerged in 1956 appearing in the Mystery Writers Handbook by the Mystery Writers of America, edited by Herbert Breen. This version was expanded by Queen adding a dozen books and one anthology published between 1948 and 1952.

In the next installment we will discuss a number of books on the “Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone List.”

1. Photo © Mystery Writers of America. [↩]