20 Brilliant Vintage Authors

Victoria

Some time ago Sabine asked a fabulous question in the comments on Being Interviewed by Rachel X Russell:

Thanks for that great interview. Your obvious love of literature is refreshing in an environment where there is too much talk about sales and marketing.

Speaking of vintage mysteries, I know you have written posts about Hammett and Chandler before, but do you think you might write a post about obscure writers from the 20s to 50s that are worth rediscovering?

Despite having a TBR pile that’s trying to reach the sky (and well on its way to succeed) I’m always on the lookout for ‘new’ authors and I’m sure your readers would be interested too!

Thanks for asking, Sabine! The answer to this question is actually enormously long and involved, but I will try to keep it focused.

Every year my family and I travel to Portland, Oregon, home to the infamous three-story city block of new and used books, Powell’s Books, which is where I get a lot of my best vintage stuff. I have to cover my eyes and run past the shelves of vintage westerns and Daphne du Mauriers—vintage mystery is my specialty, and as much as I long to, I simply cannot collect everything.

So I will just first show you what I’m reading right now:
























What I just read this weekend:
























And what I intend to read this week:

























And I’ll give you a list of authors to look up (just so you know, these are all mystery authors):

  1. Ngaio Marsh

  2. Julian Symons

  3. Georges Simenon

  4. Ellery Queen

  5. S.S. Van Dine

  6. Erle Stanley Gardner

  7. Rex Stout

  8. Mary Roberts Rhinehart

    9. And the famous creator of Winnie-the-Pooh wrote a mystery:

  9. A.A. Milne, The Red House Murder

    10. In addition, there are the little-known:

  10. David Alexander

  11. Cleve F. Adams

  12. Dorothy B. Hughes

  13. Leslie Ford

    14. The dreamily-beautiful:

  14. John Franklin Bardin

    15. The heartbreaking:

  15. Derek Raymond

    16. And my favorite mystery title ever:

  16. Eunice Mays Boyd, Murder Wears Mukluks

  17. Edith Wharton also wrote a collection of ghost stories that are totally worth reading.

I’ve taken these names from the bookshelves over my desk, and there are hundreds up there, so I’m probably missing some excellent authors. Also, many of these authors began in the 1920s and continued to publish into the 1960s, so you’ll find eras all over the board. But these should get you started.

Pay attention to the quality of the writing, even in what was once considered throwaway pulp.

You’ll rarely see such attention to detail, pacing, tension, and reader investment in most modern fiction anymore.

Also, I’ve reviewed something like a hundred of these vintage mysteries on Goodreads.