The Golden Age of Mystery Fiction: Soft-Boiled and Hard-Boiled

Class Description

Mystery fiction (aka detective or crime fiction) of the early twentieth century is often divided into British soft-boiled whodunnits and American hard-boiled detective fiction. Read widely across social strata and generating material for film and TV, both these types of literature became enormously popular. Indeed, the interwar period is known as the Golden Age of soft-boiled mysteries, with such iconic writers as Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Margery Allingham, and Ngaio Marsh, while the 1930s and 1940s became the era of film noir, drawing on the hard-boiled detective novels of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. In this seminar we will read and discuss selected examples of both modes in the context of the interwar and war periods, which will allow us to explore the role of popular culture in both exposing and containing societal anxieties and aspirations.

Elzbieta Foeller-Pituch is the Assistant Director of the Chabraja Center for Historical Studies at Northwestern University, where she also teaches literature classes.

All virtual classes are recorded and made available to participants registered in the class. These recordings are password-protected and available for up to two weeks after the class ends.

What to Expect

Format: Virtual 

Class Capacity: 20 

Class Style: Mix of lecture and discussion; participation encouraged 

Materials List

Required

• Agatha Christie, The 13 Problems. Harper Collins Paperbacks, 2017. ISBN: 9780008196523
  • (Please Note: We are unable to stock this book, but copies are available at online stores like AbeBooks.)
    
• Christie, The Labors of Hercules. Wentworth Press, 2016. ISBN: 9781373985392
• Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest. Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 1989. ISBN: 9780679722618
• Hammett, The Maltese Falcon, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 1992. ISBN: 9780679722649
• Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep. Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 1988. ISBN: 9780394758282
• Vera Caspary, Laura. The Feminist Press at CUNY, 2005. ISBN: 9781558615052
• Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Red-Headed League” and “The Boscombe Valley Mystery” from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 1892. Available through Project Gutenberg.
• Doyle, “Silver Blaze” from The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, 1893. Available through Project Gutenberg.

Recommended

• Raymond Chandler, “The Simple Art of Murder,” 1950. Available online.

First Assignment

• Please read the following Sherlock Holmes stories, available online at Project Gutenberg:
  • “The Red-Headed League” (1892)
  • “The Boscombe Valley Mystery” (1892)
  • “Silver Blaze” (1893)
• Please read Agatha Christie, The 13 Problems (1932)

A Brief Syllabus

1. Introduction; selected Sherlock Holmes stories
2. Agatha Christie
3. Dashiell Hammett
4. Raymond Chandler
5. Vera Caspary

Cost and Registration

5 Sessions, $200 ($180 for Newberry members, seniors, and students). Learn about becoming a member.

We offer our classes at three different price options: Regular ($200), Community Supported ($185), and Sponsor ($215). Following the models of other institutions, we want to ensure that our classes are accessible to a wider audience while continuing to support our instructors. You may choose the price that best fits your situation when registering through Learning Stream.

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The views and opinions expressed in this class and/or by the instructor are not necessarily representative of the Newberry. We aim to ensure that in our classes, participants can have respectful disagreement to foster critical thinking. This is a space to challenge and expand our own worldviews to work towards better understanding and appreciating humanity.

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