Mystery Anthology

Today, writers like Stephen King and Mary Higgins Clark are capturing the interests of millions of mystery readers. If you'd like to satisfy your mystery fix, but aren't sure which author to read, a mystery anthology might be the right choice for you. Mystery anthologies combine works by several different mystery writers (typically at least three) and bind them together as one collective work.

Fictional mystery writing began around 1790 in England and developed in America more around the 1830s. The first group of mystery writers in America is known as the "American Renaissance." They wrote mysteries, science fiction, adventure and sea stories and life novels. Edgar Allan Poe and Herman Melville are considered strong examples from this period.

Worldwide Mystery Writing
In Britain at this time, authors were writing "Sensation Novels." Wilkie Collins is famous for writing these sort of melodramatic thrillers. Other writers of British and French decent started writing crime-solving mysteries. In the 1850s and 1860s, Emile Gaboriau emerged as a master of casebook fiction, as it was also known. But perhaps most famous is the work of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who created the widely popular The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes series.

Doyle's success spurred on American writers as well, and continues to influence mystery writing to this day. Anthologies of his work as well as that of authors like Martin Hewitt are treasured as collector's items for many mystery readers. This work also helped to inspire what is now called the Golden Age of mystery fiction. Dating from 1920-1945, this age spawned tricky and clever writing from the likes of Agatha Christie, often touted as the greatest mystery writer of all time.