Here are 63 books that The First English Detectives fans have personally recommended if you like
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I’ve loved the Regency era since first reading Jane Austen’s novels, but in writing my series of 19th-century adventure fantasies, I discovered there was so much more to the period than I’d ever dreamed. Though their culture and traditions aren’t like ours, I’m fascinated by how much about the lives of those men and women is familiar—the same desires, the same dreams for the future. I hope the books on this list inspire in you the same excitement they did in me!
Any tour of Regency England needs to start with the familiar, and Jane Austen’s Englandprovides an excellent overview of the geography, traditions, and politics of the period. Though the title says Jane Austen, I love how much detail it has on things Austen never wrote about, like childrearing and crime (especially counterfeiting, which you’ll have to read to believe!). Whether you read it cover to cover or search out interesting facts, this book has everything you need to start your journey.
An authoritative account of everyday life in Regency England, the backdrop of Austen's beloved novels, from the authors of the forthcoming Gibraltar: The Greatest Siege in British History (March 2018)
Nearly two centuries after her death, Jane Austen remains the most cherished of all novelists in the English language, incomparable in the wit, warmth, and insight with which she depicts her characters and life. Yet the milieu Austen presents is only one aspect of the England in which she lived, a time of war, unrest, and dramatic changes in the country's physical and social landscape. Jane Austen's England offers a…
I’ve loved the Regency era since first reading Jane Austen’s novels, but in writing my series of 19th-century adventure fantasies, I discovered there was so much more to the period than I’d ever dreamed. Though their culture and traditions aren’t like ours, I’m fascinated by how much about the lives of those men and women is familiar—the same desires, the same dreams for the future. I hope the books on this list inspire in you the same excitement they did in me!
After getting a general idea of what Regency England was like, I recommend this slim little book produced in connection with the British Museum. It’s mostly reproductions of famous pictures and drawings, but for me it made the streets of London come alive. It’s great to read about the famous theaters at Covent Garden and Drury Lane, but so much better to see what they looked like at the height of their fame. And it saves you the cost of a trip to the British Museum!
I’ve loved the Regency era since first reading Jane Austen’s novels, but in writing my series of 19th-century adventure fantasies, I discovered there was so much more to the period than I’d ever dreamed. Though their culture and traditions aren’t like ours, I’m fascinated by how much about the lives of those men and women is familiar—the same desires, the same dreams for the future. I hope the books on this list inspire in you the same excitement they did in me!
Having gotten a taste of the sights of London, delve deeper with this exhibition guide packed with illustrations, paintings, and photographs of the things people owned and used during the Regency period and beyond. My favorite part of this book is the many essays contributed by leading historians who really know their stuff—everything you need to know about Regency art, architecture, science, and culture is right here.
This book provides a portrait of the city of London in a period when Britain enjoyed cultural, artistic, technological and material pre-eminence. It was a time when the foundations were laid for much later wealth and power. The importance of Britain in the early 19th century has been taken up by the Kulturstiftung Ruhur in Essen, who, in co-operation with the Museum of London have mounted an historical exhibition at the Villa Hugel near Essen (June-December 1992), for which this book serves as the catalogue. The exhibition itself is very broad in scope, ranging from artistic masterpieces by Turner and…
I’ve loved the Regency era since first reading Jane Austen’s novels, but in writing my series of 19th-century adventure fantasies, I discovered there was so much more to the period than I’d ever dreamed. Though their culture and traditions aren’t like ours, I’m fascinated by how much about the lives of those men and women is familiar—the same desires, the same dreams for the future. I hope the books on this list inspire in you the same excitement they did in me!
So at this point, you’re steeped in all things Regency, and there’s so much to see, you need a native guide. Enter Captain Rees Gronow! Captain Gronow knew everyone who was worth knowing during the Regency, including the Prince Regent himself, and wrote memoirs that were witty and satirical and funny. This compilation of his writing gives the dirt on the rich and famous of Regency times, and if you want to know more about the places you’ve read about, chances are Gronow has something to say about them.
Captain Rees Howell Gronow was a dandy, a debtor, a duellist and a raconteur who lived the high life in Regency London and Paris. He was also a talented writer and his memoirs form the liveliest picture of Regency society ever produced.
A contemporary noted that Gronow 'committed the greatest follies, without in the slightest disturbing the points of his shirt collar.' An epitome of style, the personification of the man about town, he devoted his life to fashionable and exciting pursuits. And he lived in exciting times. He was a Waterloo veteran , knew the obnoxious Prince Regent, mixed…
With a professional background in medicine and psychiatry, I enjoy the kind of mystery novels that involve personal relationships and family secrets, such as unexplained deaths, disputed parentage, and concealed crimes. They may deal with some dark material, but I like it to be explored subtly, without explicit descriptions of violence towards people or animals. I have lived in New Zealand for many years but grew up in the south of England, so books set in places that I remember from my early life have an added appeal.
I love reading novels set in Oxford, where I spent some of the happiest years of my life, and this book includes some vivid descriptions of the city and its environs.
The narrator is an eccentric woman, a mathematician with a troubled past, who works for academic families as a nanny. She takes a post with an unlikeable couple in the hope of befriending their withdrawn 8-year-old daughter. But when the little girl goes missing, the nanny comes under suspicion. This is an unusual story with some quirky characters.
I’m a writer of Jane Austen-inspired fiction who fell down a research rabbit hole and perhaps I’ll never climb out. Dr. Johnson said, “The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading… a man will turn over half a library to make one book.” The five books I’m recommending offer a window into the long 18th century, the era of the Enlightenment, and the dawn of the industrial revolution. In these books I’ve met philosophers, romantics, and reformers who brought literacy to the underclass and emancipation to the enslaved. These books have helped me place the characters of my novels within a fascinating, consequential period of history.
A book about a group of London intellectuals – sometimes friends, sometimes frenemies – who expressed their influential ideas with an elegant style that I find irresistible. (Dr. Johnson strongly influenced Jane Austen, so if you like Austen, you’ll like Johnson.) This book is filled with anecdotes of friendships, rivalries, partying, and bickering, with a fair amount of Georgian bawdy humor sprinkled throughout. You’ll meet writers, poets, playwrights, legislators, and bluestockings. The Club gives you multiple biographies plus a portrait of London in the late Georgian period. Spending time with this book is like spending a few hours with Dr. Johnson and his witty friends at a London coffeehouse.
The story of the group of extraordinary eighteenth-century writers, artists, and thinkers who gathered weekly at a London tavern
Named one of the 10 Best Books of 2019 by the New York Times Book Review * A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2019 * A Kirkus Best Book of 2019
"Damrosch brings the Club's redoubtable personalities-the brilliant minds, the jousting wits, the tender camaraderie-to vivid life."-New York Times Book Review
"Magnificently entertaining."-Washington Post
In 1763, the painter Joshua Reynolds proposed to his friend Samuel Johnson that they invite a few friends to join them every Friday at the Turk's Head…
I have always loved history, from ancient Egyptian times up to recent history (the 1950s and 1960s). Put history in the context of a crime and the history becomes even more fascinating. A book where the history of that time comes vividly alive for the reader is the greatest pleasure a reader can experience.
Edward Marston’s Railway Detective books, set in Victorian England and featuring Inspector Colbeck, have become under-the-wire best sellers internationally. This book features a dozen short stories where he and his sergeant investigate crimes happening in different railway companies. It is a wonderful introduction to the whole Railway Detective series and these short stories can be savored at leisure as a starter for the main course of the full-length novels.
An eagerly awaited collection of brand new, specially commissioned short stories from the master of historical crime fiction Edward Marston, featuring his quick-witted Railway Detective, Inspector Robert Colbeck.
In this thrilling selection of stories, a young porter is found dead in a coal tub; Colbeck devises a trap to catch a thief; and a burnt train carriage holds a gruesome secret in a small coastal village. As Colbeck and his trusty aide Sergeant Victor Leeming begin to piece together clues and motives for each crime, it becomes clear the pair must stay a step ahead of the culprits to solve…
I’ve always been fascinated by the sea. I grew up near the gentle waters of England’s Kent coast, then went to St Andrews University, surrounded by the treacherous North Sea. Finally, I discovered the Devon shores, which inspired Agatha Christie. In island thrillers like hers, the power of the sea becomes overwhelming. It holds suspects at bay, becomes a murder weapon, and constrains both innocent and guilty until justice is done. For me, this is the ‘locked room’ mystery in its purest form: an isolated location and a limited number of suspects–causing unlimited amounts of tension. I hope you love these stories as much as I do.
I have always been a huge fan of PD James’s writing style, and I had the pleasure of meeting her many years ago. She told me one of her earliest memories was hearing the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty at the age of three and immediately wondering, ‘Was he pushed?’
This book was her second-to-last whodunit and is a gripping reworking of the ‘murder on an island’ theme. Her detective, Adam Dalgleish, strives to solve the mystery and unravel his own complex feelings towards his life on the mainland. As always with one of her books, I felt in safe hands with a master storyteller who was never afraid to ask difficult questions.
Combe Island off the Cornish coast is a restful retreat for the rich and the powerful. But the peace of the island is violated when one of its distinguished visitors is murdered.
Adam Dalgliesh is called in to solve the mystery quickly and discreetly, but at a difficult time for him and his depleted team. Hardly have the team begun to unravel the complicated motives of the suspects that there is a second brutal killing and the whole investigation is jeopardised when Dalgliesh is faced with a…
During WW II, my father served in the Navy, and my mother worked as a secretary. My father contracted a lung disease while on service in Africa and died in 1960 when I was seven. My mother happily lived to a ripe old age and enjoyed discussing her wartime experiences. Her stories included ones of going up to London for jolly weekends at a time when the city was being bombed. When I asked her why she took such risks, she said the Germans were not going to stop her having a life. It is in this context that I became fascinated with WW II.
This book is the the first in a gripping and atmospheric wartime thriller series featuring London policeman, Detective Sergeant Troy.
Troy has an unusual background for a police officer in that he is the son of an immensely rich Russian emigré businessman. In this story, set in 1944, a man’s severed arm is found on a bomb site. Troy investigates and discovers the arm belongs to a refugee German scientist working for British intelligence.
This is a marvelous thriller from a writer once selected in a Time all-time list of detective authors to savor.
John Lawton’s debut novelfirst published by Viking in 1995, and now being reissued by Grove Pressis a stunning, war-time thriller that cements his place among the greatest crime writers of our era. The first of the Inspector Troy novels, Black Out singularly captures the realities of wartime London, weaving them into a riveting drama that encapsulates the uncertainty of Europe at the dawn of the postwar era.
London, 1944. While the Luftwaffe makes its final assault on the already battered British capital, Londoners rush through the streets, seeking underground shelter in the midst of the city’s black out. When the…
My parents were avid readers and mysteries were a perennial favorite for all of us. By my early teens I moved from Judy Bolton and Nancy Drew to the Golden Age of mystery writers such as Agatha Christie and Mary Roberts Rinehart. Clearly addicted to mysteries without undue violence or gore, I discovered some wonderful television series as well. It won’t surprise you to learn that my favorite is Murder, She Wrote.
Many of the women in my family worked in domestic service. I do know that their work lives were not easy and their employers were often quite demanding. Still, each time I wander into the Victorian era where Mrs. Jeffries is housekeeper to Inspector Witherspoon of the Metropolitan Police, I imagine that my grandmother or my aunt is one of the household staff who Mrs. Jeffries organizes to do a “behind the scenes” investigation and provide the Inspector with the right clues to solve his cases.
Mrs. Jeffries is back in the New York Times bestselling Victorian Mytery series, perfect for fans of Downton Abbey.
Thomas Mundy checks in to London’s Wrexley Hotel, but he never checks out. The maid finds him on the floor of his room, bludgeoned to death by his own walking stick. Inspector Witherspoon is soon on the case and learns Mundy had a reputation for being polite, charming, and diligent—an unlikely victim for such a violent crime.
But Mrs. Jeffries and the household staff uncover that Mundy was less an amiable businessman and more a duplicitous con man with enemies on…
