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Dec. 31st, 2025 06:59 amI've been playing around with the reading list/challenge feature on The StoryGraph, and I've just published my first: The Haycraft List of Detective Story Cornerstones
In his 1941 book Murder for Pleasure: The Life and Times of the Detective Story, Howard Haycraft included a list offering "a suggestive selection of the 'high spots'" of the first century of modern detective fiction, from "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" to The Patience of Maigret, by way of Holmes, Wimsey, and many others.
For the most part, he limited himself to one book per author, except in a few cases where he felt that the author's range or impact justified the making of an exception. Dorothy L. Sayers and John Dickson Carr, to name two, were awarded a second spot on the list. Arthur Conan Doyle is the sole author to be awarded a third (in fact he gets nine, because Haycraft refused to play favourites and included the entire Canon).
(My first thought for a reading list was actually the book club from Jo Walton's Among Others, but I put it off long enough that someone else got there first.)
In his 1941 book Murder for Pleasure: The Life and Times of the Detective Story, Howard Haycraft included a list offering "a suggestive selection of the 'high spots'" of the first century of modern detective fiction, from "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" to The Patience of Maigret, by way of Holmes, Wimsey, and many others.
For the most part, he limited himself to one book per author, except in a few cases where he felt that the author's range or impact justified the making of an exception. Dorothy L. Sayers and John Dickson Carr, to name two, were awarded a second spot on the list. Arthur Conan Doyle is the sole author to be awarded a third (in fact he gets nine, because Haycraft refused to play favourites and included the entire Canon).
(My first thought for a reading list was actually the book club from Jo Walton's Among Others, but I put it off long enough that someone else got there first.)
