SOURCE: Panek, LeRoy Lad. “Turn-of-the-Century Writers.” In An Introduction to the Detective Story, pp. 96-119. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1987.

In the following essay, Panek discusses a number of authors of crime-mystery-detective stories who wrote during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

When Doyle prematurely killed Holmes in 1894, The Strand Magazine announced in desperation that a new batch of Sherlock Holmes stories “will commence in an early number.” Knowing this was unlikely, the editors kept their collective foot in the door Doyle had opened by promising, “meanwhile, powerful detective stories will be contributed by other eminent writers.” There were, however, no authentically “eminent” detective writers around. The Strand's advertisement, as well as other magazines' willingness to print detective stories in the hopes of bagging a trophy like Doyle, made people into detective writers overnight. At the turn of the century, dozens of...