Eight detective classics before the genre settled
The detective story was invented in the nineteenth century and codified in the twentieth, and these eight books catch it in between: sensation novels with lawyers, a priest who solves crimes by sympathy, a locked-room diamond and a chase across Scotland.
The list
- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes — Arthur Conan Doyle, 1892. Twelve self-contained puzzles; the best possible introduction to detective fiction.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon - The Woman in White — Wilkie Collins, 1859. The first great sensation novel, with a villain worth the wait.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon - The Moonstone — Wilkie Collins, 1868. The first great detective novel, and still one of the best-plotted books in the genre.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon - The Mystery of a Hansom Cab — Fergus Hume, 1886. One of the first international detective bestsellers, and a snapshot of colonial Melbourne.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon - The Hound of the Baskervilles — Arthur Conan Doyle, 1902. The best Holmes novel, and the one that shows Conan Doyle could write atmosphere as well as puzzles.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon - The Innocence of Father Brown — G. K. Chesterton, 1911. The most original detective collection after Holmes, and a lesson in solving crimes by understanding people.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon - The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Volume 2 — Edgar Allan Poe, 1840. The core of Poe's fiction in one volume, including the first modern detective story.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon - The Thirty-Nine Steps — John Buchan, 1915. The first modern chase thriller, and still one of the fastest books in the genre.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon
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