The Big Book of Victorian Mysteries

In The Big Book of Victorian Mysteries, Otto Penzler has compiled forty-nine stories all written during the Victorian era. This compilation includes lesser-known stories by well-known authors such as H.G. Wells, Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. There are also classics such as The Greek Interpreter by Arthur Conan Doyle and The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allan Poe. However, the majority of these short stories are written by authors you’ve probably never heard of unless you spend a lot of time reading Victorian era literature. It wasn’t until this era that detectives were formed, creating a new genre of literature. Penzler divides this collection into four sections: detective stories, crime stories, international stories and American stories.

There’s a little bit of everything in here, from murder to theft and detectives in disguise. Be aware that although these stories are short, there are forty-nine of them so this is a book that is over six hundred pages. However, the brevity of the stories also make it easy to put it down after one or two and come back later. If you love the Victorian era as much as I do, I highly recommend you pick this up.