Higgins's Mysteries
WOMEN & DETECTIVE FICTION
A SELECTIVE CHRONOLOGY
The Golden Age & Beyond
     
AGATHA CHRISTIE--The Mysterious Affair at Styles 1920 first HERCULE POIROT book (1977)*
     
DOROTHY L. SAYERS--Whose Body? 1923 first PETER WIMSEY book (1947)*
     
MISS CLIMPSON--Unnatural Death 1927 Sayers's spinster sleuth
     
Christie's spinster sleuth MISS MARPLE
appears in six short stories
1928 Patricia Wentworth's spinster sleuth
Miss Maude Silver (1961)
*
     
Josephine Tey--Alan Grant (1952)*
Mignon G. Eberhard--Nurse Sarah Keate; Susan Dare(1954)*
1929 Margery Allingham--Albert Campion &
Lady Amanda Fitton(1973)
*
Gladys Mitchell--Dame Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley(1984)*
     
Sayers's HARRIET VANE--Strong Poison 193O Hammett's SAM SPADE--The Maltese Falcon
     
  1933 Gardner--PERRY MASON
The Case of the Velvet Claws
     
Ngaio Marsh--Roderick Alleyn & Agatha Troy(1982)* 1934 Stout--NERO WOLFE--Fer-de-Lance
     
SAYERS--Busman's Honeymoon
1937 Conventional "END" of Golden Age
Josephine Bell--Dr. David Wintringham & Insp. Steven Mitchell (1980)* 1937 Stout--Dol Bonner--The Hand in the Glove
     
Bell's classic The Port of London Murders 1938 female detective AMY TUPPER (1979)*
     
Gardner(A.A. Fair)--Bertha Cool--The Bigger They Come 1939 Chandler--Philip Marlowe--The Big Sleep
     
Elizabeth Daly--Henry Gamadge(1951)* 1940  
     
  1941 Christiana Brand--Insp. Charlesworth & Insp. Cockrill(1979)*
     
Hilda Lawrence--Mark East--Death of a Doll (1947)* 1944 Brand's Green for Danger
     
Margaret Scott (w/ William Charles Oursler)
two books with GALE GALLAGHER
First female private eye since Silver (1949)
1947 Spillane--Mike Hammer--I, The Jury
     
  1952 Brand's London Particular
     
Marion Mainwaring--Murder in Pastiche
Spike Bludgeon parody of Hammer

1954  
     
  1956 Ann Bridge--Julia Probyn
The Lighthearted Quest (1973)
*
     

* Dates in parentheses represent last publication.

Content and concept by
Ellen F. Higgins

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Roger Lipera