Melodie Johnson Howe is taking a well deserved break from blogging today, just in time for us to welcome back crime fiction historian Barry T. Zeman and his informative series concerning Queen’s Quorum, the definitive list of important mystery short stories.

READING QUEEN’S QUORUM-CONTINUED

The First Golden Era

by Barry T. Zeman

As this article is the belated fourth in a series begun late last year, perhaps it is best to briefly refresh our memories regarding Queen’s Quorum. It is simply the brief history of the detective-crime-mystery short story as revealed through Ellery Queen’s choices for the 125 most important books published in this field from 1845 through 1967. Our task is to introduce enthusiasts to those key books of single author short fiction that remain eminently readable today and likely create enjoyment for the reader.

Up until now we have reviewed selected stories from the first 55 years of the development of the modern detective-crime story ending with Queen’s chapter titled “The Doyle Decade”. His next chapter was “The First Golden Era” and covers the decade starting the 20th century. Of the eighteen ‘cornerstones’ Queen discusses, a few are worth searching out for today’s reader. Regrettably, we will not discuss the wonderful, yet unobtainable, truly rare volumes that have not been reprinted. A famous and oft reprinted story, “The Stolen Cigar Case” by Bret Harte, appeared in Condensed Novels (Second Series) , Houghton, Mifflin, 1902. Queen considered this the best of the many hundreds of Sherlock Holmes parodies every written.

In 1906 Robert Barr produced The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont, which Queen considered an outstanding achievement, a “tour de force” satire of the “nationalistic differences between French and English police systems” that exhibits “warmth, humor and ingenuity”. He especially recommends the classic story, “The Absent-Minded Coterie.”

The following year saw the appearance in the US of Arsene Lupin-The Prince of Thieves in The Exploits of Arsene Lupin. Although the author, Maurice LeBlanc, would more fully develop this immensely popular character in later books, Exploits shows why Queen felt Lupin was “one of the imperishables of the genre, irrepressible and irresistible” with “enduring charm and ‘highfantastic’ exuberance”.

The first appearance of another remarkable character, Professor Augustus S.F.X. Van Dusen, better known as “The Thinking Machine”, also occurred in 1907. Jacques Futrelle, an American newspaperman who became a full time fiction writer in 1906, created this popular and extraordinary character. The classic story “The Problem of Cell Thirteen”, appeared in this volume. It and a number of other Thinking Machine stories are available on the Internet. A second Thinking Machine volume came out in 1908. Returning with his wife May from a trip to Europe in 1912 to expand the market for his stories and books, Futrelle died when the R.M.S. Titanic went down on its maiden voyage. His wife survived the ordeal.

In 1908, O’Henry, one of American fiction’s most beloved authors, created a volume of “whimsical and extravagant humor” starring the first literary bunco-artists, Jeff Peters and Andy Tucker. Queen describes The Gentler Grafter as “a book of stories built about a single theme- the separation of the fool from his money”. In 1948 Queen selected and published a collection of O’Henry’s detective crime-stories titled Cops And Robbers (American Mercury).

Two books Queen felt were among the ten best ever written were published in 1909. The first, The Old Man in The Corner, by the Baroness Orczy, the creator of the Scarlet Pimpernel, was the first “armchair detective”, “a truly conspicuous contribution to detective literature” according to Queen. You can download a copy of this gem for free at Project Gutenberg. The second classic volume to appear that year was another unique detective. In John Thorndyke’s Cases, R. Austin Freeman began a long and illustrious career by creating Dr. John Thorndyke, “the greatest scientific detective of all time”. Queen says that the reader may need to acquire a taste for Freeman’s precise style of storytelling, maintaining “it is worth the time and effort; and when, as with old wine, you learn to appreciate the bouquet, flavor, and body of Thorndyke vintage, you will have added a priceless ingredient to your enjoyment of the pure detective story”. You can also down load a free copy at Project Gutenberg or buy one of the numerous reprint editions available through the Internet.

The last of the selections from ‘The First Golden Era’ is the first book of short stories to make scientific use of psychology in the process of crime detection. William MacHarg and Edward Balmer published their famous volume, The Achievements of Luther Trant (Small, Maynard, 1910) about a Chicago based consultant on criminal cases. This “daring and imaginative” work also saw the first appearance in fiction of the lie detector (The Man Higher Up). Although a rare book in first edition as many other we have mentioned, two of the stories appeared in The American Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, edited by Hugh Green in 1976.

The next chapter of Queen’s Quorum, “The Second Golden Era,” will explore a decade that gave us some our most enduring and intriguing detectives, including Father Brown, Craig Kennedy, Max Carrados, Reggie Fortune and Uncle Abner. At the same time, you will discover the first “inverted” detective story. Hopefully, you will be delighted to discover these first appearances when we next get together.