WHODUNNIT?
 |
|---|
Wiilkie Collins may be regarded as the father of the English detective story. His novel The Moonstone established the basic formula for the genre . Other writers like Conan Doyle developed the characteristics of the eccentric English detective to a great extent and no reading of English detective fiction would be complete without including these two writers.
For me, however, the golden age of English detective fiction was the period 1920 - 1950. Writers such as Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham, Michael Innes and Edmund Crispin created a particularly beguiling type of academic detective story, often set in a university environment which goes far beyond a 'whodunnit?' puzzle in its scope and often includes a wide range of literary and artistic allusion.
The best account of this genre and of its meaning and function is given by W.H. Auden in his essay 'The Guilty Vicarage' included in The Dyer's Hand. This page has as its main focus this particular period and genre of English detective fiction.
