Cross Examining Crime’s 5 Year Anniversary: P. G. Wodehouse’s Influence on Classic Crime Fiction

 

The brainy coves amongst us often keep twiddling our thumbs trying to figure out if crime and humour go together in the realm of literature. Those who have waded through ‘Hot Water’ or any other whodunits dished out by P G Wodehouse would readily respond in the affirmative. Those who also happen to be fans of the likes of Agatha Christie and others would heartily approve of the sentiment, but may not be aware of the kind of impact our master story tellers have had on each other’s works.

Here is a scholarly piece (if piece is indeed the word I want) which goes deeper into the question of Plum’s influence on classic crime fiction. Permission to re-blog it here is gleefully acknowledged.

crossexaminingcrime

Today, it has been five years since I first began writing this blog. How much has changed! I almost feel embarrassed by my early reviews. (Cue everyone searching to read how bad they were). To date I have managed to rack up 1133 posts and 1191808 words. You will probably laugh at the idea that I had a lot of second thoughts about starting my blog. After all, what would I have to say? (Yes, please stop laughing now, you might choke on your tea/coffee…)

I spent a lot of time wondering what to write about for this anniversary post and in the end I became inspired when I read that Anthony Berkeley dedicated Trial and Error (1937) to P. G. Wodehouse. A little more internet searching and I discovered that many other well-known classic crime writers had done the same thing: Agatha Christie’s Hallowe’en Party (1969), Edgar Wallace’s The…

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