HISTORICAL MYSTERIES - an extensive list

What is an historical mystery (in the sense of whodun(n)it or detective story)? The general idea seems to be that it is a detective story set before the author's time. But as the second half of the 19th century saw the birth of crime fiction as a genre, from that time onward we get a kind of grey zone in which the contemporary thrillers of author A, who may have become history himself, are set in the same period as the historical ones of author B, who is alive and kicking. A Sherlock Holmes mystery written by Arthur Conan Doyle would not be historical whereas a present day imitation would, and to me, this doesn't feel right. My personal solution has been to simply ignore most of the books from the grey zone, but consistency is a rare thing, and therefore several of these books did find their way to my dbase after all. Some time in the future, I may think of a 100% solution or limit myself to medieval mysteries - my favourites - altogether.
Historical novels that don't center around a mystery, be it crime or puzzle, are generally omitted, as are mysteries in which a past crime is solved in the present - with a few exceptions like `The Daughter of Time'. Errors may have slipped in, though, as I don't always know what a book is about and tend to include promising titles as historical mysteries until they prove to be something different. Not excluded are alternative histories, unless I feel they cross the border to fantasy.

Meanwhile, the dbase contains about 1100 historical mystery books ranging from Ancient Egypt to approximately 1900, in the languages English (EN, 750+ titles), German (GE, 150+ titles), French (FR, 100+ titles), Dutch (NL, 39 titles), Italian (IT, 33 titles), Danish (DA, 10 titles), Swedish (SW, 12 titles), Norwegian (NO, 2 titles), Spanish (SP; 6 titles), Portuguese (PO; 1title), Turkish (1 title), and Russian (1 title), the latest addition being the author Boris Akunin.
The following fields are covered: Author, title, language, year of publishing, place and a period code (PC): 1 - Antiquity, 2 - Middle Ages, 3 -16th, 17th and 18th centuries, 4 - 19th century and 5 (seldom used) - after 1900. A J behind a title indicates a juvenile. Short stories are not listed separately.

As the stress is on Antiquity and the Middle Ages, the list is fairly exhaustive up till 1800, though sometimes the more recent books in a longer series do not (yet) have an entry of their own. For series set after 1800, this is the general rule, with a few exceptions denoting my personal interest and/or appreciation. After 1850 the list is rather fragmentary. Readers particularly interested in the Victorian era and beyond are referred to Brer Fox (only mysteries in English). A very good site, though the books listed there are not all historical mysteries in the `whodunit' sense or even historical fiction.

Corrections and additions are always welcome.

DBASE (frames; with author & book links)    MEDIEVAL DBASE       Recent & forthcoming titles

OTHER LINKS

- Specifically Roman: The detective and the toga. Mysteries situated in Ancient Rome, in more than    ten languages (mostly translations, but with original mysteries in German, French and Italian). Also    lists short stories!
- A related, more general site is History and Mystery, in Italian and English.
- Join the Crime Thru Time community for an ongoing discussion of historical mysteries.
- The Drood Review supplement Medi-Evil mysteries
- For some online stories and links to other historical mystery sites, visit Anitra.
- Sue Feder's Magical Mystery Tour: link to the site of the Historical Mystery Appreciation Society.
- Some of the titles in the dbase are linked to reviews in the Mystery Guide
- Another site reviewing historical mysteries is The Mystery Reader
- The author Sharan Newman on the writing of (medieval) historical mystery novels.

 
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