As the song from My Fair Lady asks, "Wouldn't it be Loverly?" Here's an example much closer to home, among visitors to the Classic Mysteries blog and podcast: wouldn't it be "loverly" to discover not one, not five, not ten, but sixteen stories, never, or very rarely, published but forgotten stories by sixteen of the finest writers of that Golden Age of Detective Fiction? Virtually new, largely unseen and certainly unread stories by the likes of Nicholas Blake, Georgette Heyer, Freeman Wills Crofts, Leo Bruce and even Agatha Christie? That's what I can offer you today on the Classic Mysteries podcast as we discuss the amazing anthology called Bodies from the Library: Lost tales of mystery and suspense by Agatha Christie and other Masters of the Golden Age. The book, ably selected and introduced by Tony Medawar, was released last summer, and I owe you all an apology for not bringing it to your attention before this. It is the subject of today's audio review on the podcast, and you can listen to the complete review, which includes brief summaries of all sixteen stories, by clicking here.
Crime fiction historian Tony Medawar managed to discover these sixteen stories written by so many of the finest writers of that Golden Age, and I suspect that many of my visitors here will recognize some of the authors' names, beginning with the ones I mentioned above, but going on to other master writers, male and female. You'll find stories here by Anthony Berkeley, Chrisianna Brand, Arthur Upfield, and A. A. Milne - the list goes on. For each of the stories, Medawar gives us a few brief introductory paragraphs about the author and about the story - for these stories, as I said earlier, will almost certainly be unknown to most people. They're usually stories that had been written very early in the author's career, perhaps published once in a newspaper or magazine, but never before collected into an anthology. Most are very good examples of the kind of fiction produced by these Golden Age authors - the kind of stories that I suspect most of my listeners enjoy as much as I do.
I would also note that there will be a second volume of forgotten gems rediscovered by Tony Medawar that will be published in mid-July as Bodies from the Library 2. I promise I'll try to report on it in a more timely manner. In the meantime, enjoy these sixteen stories!
Comments