Victorians! discussion

We are taking nominations for our next group read with its theme being "mystery." Authors must be those who wrote during the Victorian age. Since we have so recently read Dickens and Collins, you should not be including them in your nominations. Looking forward to see who everyone selects.

Nominations will close on June 1st.

A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle

Does our bookshelf have a "read with group" shelf? That would be handy.

What abut something by M. E. Braddon?

Lucy wrote: "Either Bleak House by Charles Dickens or The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, though if both have been read, I also suggest The Mystery of Edwin Drood.... though I don't know if I can stand reading a m..."

Sorry, Lucy, please reread Marialyce's message #1 and make another selection if you would like.

One nomination per member is always best also.

The "Read" shelf are the books read with group, Susanna. If it leaves out a few, the moderators will try to clear that up. We have not really that many true mysteries however, so we are pretty open with this genre.

The Dupin Tales: The Murders in the Rue Morgue, by Edgar Allan Poe. (Or is American OK?)

Susanna wrote: "The Dupin Tales: The Murders in the Rue Morgue, by Edgar Allan Poe. (Or is American OK?)"

When I tried to think of Victorian mystery stories, the only ones I could think of were Sherlock Holmes, Wilkie Collins' work, and Poe's Dupin. I thought of suggesting Poe, but didn't know if three short stories would be acceptable, rather than a novel. However, Dupin was the first fictional detective, and both the Holmes stories and the Hercule Poirot stories by Agatha Christie show a marked influence, so they are certainly an important literary influence when it comes to mystery.

He's kinda the grandfather of the genre - Conan Doyle being the daddy.

Marialyce wrote: "We are taking nominations for our next group read with its theme being "mystery." Authors must be those who wrote during the Victorian age. Since we have so recently read Dickens and Collins, you s..."

Hmmm. Needs some thinking. Not that many Victorian authors wrote what we would classify as true mysteries. Poe, of course, but he wrote mostly short stories; I believe he only wrote one novel. (Not that I'm nominating it, but would "The Short Stories of Poe" be considered an acceptable nomination if one wanted to do so?)

One other question, not to argumentative, just to see what the options might be. You say "authors who wrote during the Victorian age." Do the books also have to have been published before Victoria's death, or if we have an author who was writing during her reign can we nominate a book written after V's death? (I am thinking specifically of Mary Roberts Rinehart, who wrote her first mystery in 1906 but most of whose best mysteries were written after that.)

We have not thus far restricted our reads in this group by country, nor have we ruled out short stories.

We have restricted our discussions to works published within Victoria's reign. The statement in the introduction to this topic was to clarify that we want works of that time period, NOT simply any works set in that time period -- in other words NOT a current-day author, writing Victorian.

These are very good questions, everyone. So everyone joining in at this point, please read the preceding comments which may answer any questions you have, or if needed, please ask for further clarification.

Nominations are open to all members, so please add your own if you have read of any mystery writing that all may not be aware of. Enjoy!

The Dupin Tales: The Murders in the Rue Morgue sounds great to me! I've read several of Poe's short stories, but none of the Dupin ones.

Speaking of Poe, has anyone ever read The Poe Shadow, by Matthew Pearl? It is great modern historical fiction if you are a fan of Edgar Poe(or just good historical fiction) and it has quite a bit to do with his mystery stories.

Grace wrote: "Speaking of Poe, has anyone ever read The Poe Shadow, by Matthew Pearl? It is great modern historical fiction if you are a fan of Edgar Poe(or just good historical fiction) and it has quite a bit t..."

I've heard good things about this one. I need to check it out.

Poe sounds good to me, too.

Poe!!!

I will nominate an author mentioned when we polled reader interest in mystery a while back -- Anna Katherine Green and her detective novel published in 1878:

The Leavenworth Case

Sorry. Deleted my comment which is clearly superfluous. Should have read initial post better. Since I know of so few Victorian mystery authors I will comment no further.

SarahC wrote: "I will nominate an author mentioned when we polled reader interest in mystery a while back -- Anna Katherine Green and her detective novel published in 1878:

The Leavenworth Case"
I'd love it!

Laura, did you want to pick a specific M.E. Braddon title as a nomination? or did you change that to a "second" motion for The Leavenworth Case? :)

Reminder for all that the nominations will close in 2 days.

SarahC wrote: "Laura, did you want to pick a specific M.E. Braddon title as a nomination? or did you change that to a "second" motion for The Leavenworth Case? :)

Reminder for all that the nominations will close..."
I have not a specific title in mind: by Braddon I've read only a couple of things such Lady Audley secret and Aurira Floyd. Have you some suggestions? Otherwise I'll stick to The Leavenworth case.

So far we seem to have the following authors:
Edgar Allen Poe
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
M.E. Braddon
Anna Katherine Green

Some other possibilities are mentioned here:
http://www.sldirectory.com/libsf/book...

Thanks, Marialyce. And please remember everyone to put forward a title that is somewhat available in publication today.

Marialyce, did you or someone else want to take up the Braddon nomination? I think Laura is leaving it to us.

Let's see if someone else would like to nominate a book by Braddon.

I will take Braddon. I have been currious to read more of her since Lady Audley's Seceret.

I nominate Aurora Floyd

What about Hester by Margaret Oliphant? She is rather lesser known in Victorian lit (from what I understand, she went completely out of print for a couple of decades), but Hester was republished in 2003 and is available through Amazon. I haven't read the novel and I haven't read anything by Oliphant, but the blurb seems interesting enough and it might be nice to read somebody completely different.

I'd be totally down for ME Braddon, though.

Some people on another site have been coincidentally talking about The Leavenworth Case, which I first heard about on this thread, and it's getting me interested in it. Anna Katherine Green was the first female detective author and the first to write a detective series, I believe.