Dorothy L. Sayers and the Detection Club wrote the rules that now

define mystery and detective fiction. Other authors, among them S.

S. Van Dine,1[i] proposed their own sets of rules, but the Detection

Club rules were unusually good. They struck an elegant balance

between intellectual integrity and artistic license. This, combined with

the prominence of the Detection Club members as crime authors,

appears to have made them the defining force of the genre.

Hercule Poirot, Father Brown, and Lord Peter Wimsey all owe their

existence to Detection Club members. Wimsey, of course, is Sayers'

creation. Hercule Poirot came from the fertile mind of Agatha

Christie, and G. K. Chesterton wrote the Father Brown mysteries.

Sayers and Chesterton wrote detective stories to support their more

scholarly work. Agatha Christie reigned as the queen of crime fiction

for more than twenty years. Despite the fact that their mysteries fell

into the mystery sub-genre now called "cozies,"2[ii] their combined

1[i] S. S. Van Dine was the pen name of Willard Huntington Wright.

2[ii] "Cozies" give the reader a "cozy," comfortable sort of feel, whether they are set in a small town or

upper crust London. They are distinct in tone from the seedier feel of many professional private detective

stories. The detective need not be an amateur, but the gritty atmosphere of the Raymond Chandler

"slumming angel" is absent. Rita Mae Brown's mysteries are "cozies;" Sue Grafton's and Sarah Paretsky's

are not. Rex Stout's work probably occupies the line between. Within the brownstone, all is cozy; outside,

Archie (and occasionally Wolfe) deal with the harsher realities of life.

eminence, together with the support of the rest of the club,

established a pattern for the entire mystery and detection genre.

In 1928, the Roaring Twenties were nearing an end. World War I

was over, and the Great Depression was not yet in sight. Writer

Anthony Berkeley3[iii] felt a need to socialize and talk shop with other

detective writers. He suggested to Sayers, Christie, Chesterton, and

others that they and other crime writers dine together from time to

time, and these meetings became regular.4[iv] By 1930,5[v] the

meetings had become the Detection Club, and the effects of the

Great Depression had begun to make themselves felt worldwide.