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[Re-release] Historical Mystery (part 1) image

[Re-release] Historical Mystery (part 1)

S3 E14 · Clued in Mystery Podcast
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257 Plays1 year ago

Clued in Mystery is taking a short break. While we are off, we are re-releasing some of our favourite episodes from Season 2. This week: Historical Mystery (part 1).

Whether set in ancient Egypt or the 1920s, readers are sure to find a  historical mystery set in a period they love. In this episode, Brook  and Sarah discuss the origins of historical mysteries and share some of  their favourites.

Books and authors mentioned

William Shakespeare

Leo Tolsoy

Sir Walter Scott

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Agatha Christie Death Comes as the End

Brother Cadfael series by Ellis Peters

Anne Perry The Cater Street Hangman

Umberto Echo The Name of the Rose

Andrea Penrose’s Wrexford and Sloane series

Iona Whishaw’s Lane Winslow series

C.J. Sansom’s Shardlake series

Tasha Alexander’s Lady Emily series

“The Three Apples” in One Thousand and One Nights

Deanna Raybourn Lady Julia Gray series and the Veronica Speedwell series

Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters

Philippa Gregory

References

“Deanna Raybourn on Mistaken Perceptions of the Victorian Age”. Writer Writer Pants on Fire, Feb. 28, 2022. Ep. 194

https://celadonbooks.com/what-is-historical-fiction/

For more information

www.cluedinmystery.com

Instagram: @cluedinmystery

Contact us: hello@cluedinmystery.com

Music: Signs To Nowhere by Shane Ivers – www.silvermansound.com

Transcript

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Transcript

Introduction and Re-release Announcement

00:00:01
Speaker
Clued in Mystery is taking a short break. Until we return, we are re-releasing a few of our favorite episodes from season two. We hope you enjoy.

Why Historical Mystery is a Favorite Genre

00:00:22
Speaker
Welcome to Clued in Mystery. I'm Sarah.
00:00:26
Speaker
And I'm Brooke, and we both love mystery. Good morning, Brooke. How are you today? I'm great, Sarah, and I'm very excited to be talking to you about historical mystery.
00:00:39
Speaker
Yeah, I'm really excited about this today because it's a topic that is near and dear to me. It's probably one of my favorites of genres of mystery, and I almost always have historical mystery on the go, whether I'm listening to one or reading one.

Origins and Influences of Historical Mystery

00:00:54
Speaker
So I'll just start with an overview. Historical mystery in Western writing is relatively new, really only gaining popularity from about the late 1970s.
00:01:05
Speaker
But I wanted to look a little bit more broadly at historical fiction, where there are some earlier examples. So Shakespeare, for example, wrote historical fiction plays, Antony and Cleopatra, Julius Caesar. They were set well before the time period that Shakespeare was living in. And that's one of the criterion for historical fiction, that it's set at least 50 years before it's written. And that's true for historical mystery as well.
00:01:32
Speaker
Moving forward a little bit, Leo Tolstoy, Sir Walter Scott, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote historical fiction, and they set readers' expectations with respect to keeping a focus on capturing the essence of the time through character clothing, their mannerisms, and the setting.

Pioneering Works in Historical Mystery

00:01:50
Speaker
So readers won't accept an automobile if the story is set in Regency, England, unless it was an alternate history or historical fantasy.
00:01:58
Speaker
Early examples of modern historical mystery novels include Agatha Christie's Death Comes as the End, which is set in Egypt in 2000 BC and published in 1944. If we jump ahead a little bit to 1977, we see the release of the first book in the popular Brother Cadfale series by Ellis Peters, and that was set in 12th century England.
00:02:21
Speaker
A year later, and Perry's first book, The Cater Street Hangman, was published. And it's the first of her Thomas and Charlotte Pitt series, which is set in Victorian London. And she carries that series on through their son in a series that's set in Edwardian England. And then she's got another set in early Victorian England as well.

Modern Authors and Diverse Settings

00:02:42
Speaker
Humberto Eco's The Name of the Rose is set in 14th century Italy and was published in Italian in 1980 and English in 1983 and I found several references to it as really spurring the popularity of the genre and it sold over 50 million copies.
00:02:58
Speaker
In the last 40 years, several other authors have found success in historical mystery, and some that I've read and really enjoyed include Andrea Penrose's Wexford and Sloan series, which is set in Regency, England, Iona Wishaw's Lane Winslow mysteries, which are set in the interior of British Columbia and take place following the Second World War,
00:03:18
Speaker
C.J. Sanson's Shardlake series is set in Tudor England and Tasha Alexander's Lady Emily series set in Victorian England. There's several series as well that are set in the 1920s or during or after the First or Second World Wars and of course there's many standalone books.
00:03:36
Speaker
really any period of history, I think there's, you know, a reader is sure to find a historical mystery set then.

Non-Western Historical Mysteries

00:03:44
Speaker
So I could go on, but I'm just going to close this really brief overview by saying that there are some examples of historical mystery from outside Western literature. The short story collection 1001 Nights contains a story called The Three Apples, which is considered a mystery.
00:03:59
Speaker
There's something called Gongan Stories from China, and these feature Judge Di and Judge Bao Jing, both of whom were real people. I've only read one story featuring Judge Bao, and it was presented more as a fable. I just started listening to a translation of a Judge Di story.
00:04:20
Speaker
I can certainly see the parallels to what we consider modern mysteries in terms of going to visit the crime scene and looking for clues.

Crime-Solving Without Modern Tech

00:04:31
Speaker
Brooke, I don't know if you feel the same way, but historical mystery doesn't seem as flashy to me as some of the other mystery categories like domestic thriller or spy fiction. I don't think that the book of the summer is going to be a historical mystery.
00:04:45
Speaker
But I keep returning to this genre because of the focus on solving the crime and the joy of being lost in another time. And I know you read historical fiction. Do you find the same thing? Yeah, definitely. I hadn't thought of that, but you're exactly right. It's not as flashy. It maybe seems a little bit more quiet and intellectual. But yeah, I find the same thrill. And the other thing that I think is so
00:05:15
Speaker
fun about historical mystery is you are going to not have the technology. Because even if it's just 50 years ago from now, you know, we're not going to have computers and cell phones and that stuff that's ready at your fingertips. And so it hearkens back to the more traditional Golden Age mystery, I think, because the sleuth and their sidekicks have to be reliant on
00:05:45
Speaker
the clues and the evidence at hand. So I think that that's very endearing to me. And then I just love, like you said, to be put into another time period. And I love to learn the little tidbits that the author gives us and sort of educates us on that era, even if it's just a little bit. It doesn't have to be a lot, but I just love that.
00:06:06
Speaker
I agree. That's one of the things that I that I really enjoy. And I've never formally studied history. So, you know, I didn't take any university courses that were that were in history, but I have gone on to read nonfiction or read a little bit more about a historical period or a particular event after reading it in in a mystery. Right. In a historical mystery, it has encouraged me to learn more about things.
00:06:32
Speaker
Oh, I do the same thing. Like a lot of times I'll be reading, let's say it's, I like a lot of Victorian England settings. And if then I like have a little search going on for podcasts that are about the, you know, the true events of that era. And
00:06:48
Speaker
And then I'll find a documentary that I want to watch. It just sort of opens up a whole rabbit hole of research. And that's just, it's really fun. So that makes me wonder, Sarah, how important is it to you that everything be really historical, historically accurate?

Balancing Historical Accuracy and Entertainment

00:07:10
Speaker
It actually isn't.
00:07:11
Speaker
that important to me. I know some people feel it's very, very critical that everything be as historically, historically accurate as possible. And so, you know, I write in historical mystery and I try, you know, not to incorporate things that I know didn't exist when, when the characters were
00:07:35
Speaker
were living. So like I said in the introduction, there's no cars because in Vancouver we didn't have them until a few years after my stories are set. But it's almost fun to figure out if something was historically accurate or not.
00:07:55
Speaker
I love reading the author's notes at the end of historical fiction books because they'll often talk about, okay, this is what actually happened. Or if you want more information, here are some resources to look at.
00:08:10
Speaker
And here's where I fudged things a little bit. So, you know, I think there's, you know, as an author, you have some creative license to create a character, to create an event, to, you know, maybe push something up a little earlier than it originally happened because it fits the story. I don't have any problem with that, but I think there's probably some people who feel very strongly otherwise.
00:08:38
Speaker
Yeah, that's really interesting. In preparing for our episode, I listened to a really great interview, a podcast interview with Deanna Rayborn, who of course writes the Lady Julia Gray mystery series and the Veronica Speedwell.
00:08:54
Speaker
And she was saying that somewhere along the line, she got the recommendation to, as she's doing her research, decide that 70% of it is just for her and 30% of it can make it into the book. So it just flavors the the pros. And she
00:09:16
Speaker
was saying, you know, if you really want to learn about an era or an event, then you should probably go get a nonfiction book because, you know, her stories, she was saying were meant for, um, for entertainment than their fiction. And she's going to take some liberties and she's going to have some creative license.
00:09:34
Speaker
I think that that's true. I was thinking about, I don't write historical, but you're never going to read my books and get a lesson on the criminal justice system or the way a crime is 100% investigated because it's a cozy mystery and there's going to be some creative licenses taken. I think we need to give that same grace to authors who write historical.
00:09:58
Speaker
One of the things that I read to prepare for our conversation today was Agatha Christie's book, her historical novel, Death Comes as the End. And so there were a couple of things that I thought were really interesting. It's the only historical fiction that she wrote. And it's also one of only four of her books that has never been adapted for screen.
00:10:23
Speaker
And I don't know why that is. I'm sure it would be considerably more expensive to create a set that was ancient Egypt. But it was definitely an Agatha Christie novel. There were murders. And I wasn't entirely sure who the person behind it was. But it did feel a little bit different to her other books.
00:10:52
Speaker
Um, and I do think it's interesting that that was the only historical fiction that she, that she wrote. And I tried to find kind of what the reception at the time was for it, but I imagine because it's the only one that she wrote, it didn't get, it didn't sell enough that she wanted to continue to write, you know, to continue to write historical mysteries.
00:11:17
Speaker
Yeah, she's definitely someone that probably would have continued if it had been successful. She was very smart about her career that way. One thing you noted in there is something I really wanted to bring up because I think that a lot of readers get this wrong. You said it at the opening.
00:11:41
Speaker
A historical mystery needs to be set in a time period historical from the author's era or perspective. Not historical from this point back. I listened to a show not too long ago and the host of it was recommending Golden Age mysteries as historical fiction. And it's like, no, that's not what that means. It needs to have been written
00:12:04
Speaker
by the author as a piece of historical fiction. But to get back to Agatha, that is one that I have not read. And it sort of sticks out as an anomaly in her canon, I think. And to me, I think that's why it hasn't ever popped up as something that I have really been drawn to because it seems different. But it's good to know that it still feels like a Christie novel when you read it.
00:12:33
Speaker
I guess it's set in a family estate in Egypt, so kind of like a manor house. There's lots of characters and lots of deaths. But yeah, there was something, I don't know if I can articulate what it was, that was different. And to your earlier point, I was thinking about the difference between screen adaptations of her mysteries that we see today, which
00:12:59
Speaker
I can understand why the person on the podcast mentioned Golden Age mysteries as historical mysteries, because you could almost classify the screen versions that we're watching today as historical mysteries, even though when her stories were published, they weren't historical. They would have been modern.
00:13:24
Speaker
at the time. But I wonder if some of the appeal of, particularly her screen adaptations, apart from the mystery, is how they're so rooted in time. We've talked before about how they may be pushed ahead or back a couple of years, those adaptations, but they're never adapted in the way that Sherlock is, for example, set in present day.
00:13:52
Speaker
And so I don't know if the way that they're rooted in time is part of the appeal of her stories. And then I was also wondering about the continuations of her stories where I'm thinking of Sophie Hannah, for example, would that be considered historical mystery? Oh, that's a conundrum.
00:14:19
Speaker
That's a really good

Favorite Eras for Historical Mysteries

00:14:20
Speaker
question. I'm not sure about that. I mean, I guess technically it is because she's writing in that era in, you know, from our modern day. So that's so interesting, Sarah. Yeah. And I actually also read an Egypt historical mystery to prepare for today. And it was crocodile on the sandbank, which is by Elizabeth Peters. Um, do you have a, uh,
00:14:48
Speaker
favorite era, Sarah, of historical mystery? That's a really good question, Brooke. Ah, yeah, that's a really good question. So I really like the Shardlake series set, you know, in Tudor England. So because I really like historical fiction from that period as well. Thinking of Philippa Gregory and, you know, all of the books that she wrote, I absolutely devoured those.
00:15:15
Speaker
So it was fun to read the shard-like mysteries and maybe learn a little bit more about that period of time and think about mysteries then. I think that's probably my favourite era.
00:15:31
Speaker
Every now and again, I think, oh, maybe that would be an era that I would write in or the other era that I think I would write in, even though I'd know virtually nothing about it. So I'd have to do so much research would be like medieval. I also really like mysteries set in Victorian England. So like I mentioned, Tasha Alexander's Lady Emily series and
00:15:54
Speaker
Anne Perry's Thomas and Charlotte Pitt series, which is one of my favorite series. And it's very long. I think there's close to 30 books or maybe even more in that series. So you can get really, really immersed in that. That sounds fantastic. And what about you, Brooke? Which is your favorite?
00:16:15
Speaker
Probably Victorian England is sort of my favorite go-to, but I wrote down the Shardlake series because I also like devoured the Philippa Gregory series. Um, so I think that that sounds really good. I also loved the television series, the tutors, like that, that era is also really.
00:16:34
Speaker
fascinating to me. And I was going to say, I think you should jump in and do the medieval series, Sarah, because, you know, one thing, the farther back you get, the less there is, right? The historical record is squishy as it is. So getting all the research just exactly right becomes less and less daunting than say writing about the 1920s, right?
00:17:02
Speaker
Yeah, I would agree with that. I think the further back you go, the more creative license you have.

Creative Freedom in Medieval Settings

00:17:09
Speaker
And it would be a really good excuse to spend some time in some European city that has a lot of history to do some research.
00:17:21
Speaker
Yeah, you need to go on a lot of castle tours, I think. Exactly. Yeah, so maybe I'll work that into my plan.

Upcoming Episode Teaser

00:17:30
Speaker
So Brooke, I think this has been a really, really interesting introduction to historical mystery. And I know we're going to dig more into it in our next episode when Sarah Rosette joins us, which I'm really, really looking forward to.
00:17:45
Speaker
Yes, I cannot wait. And I can't believe that Sarah Rosette is coming on the show to talk with us. It's just going to be so exciting. Thanks for joining us today on Clued In Mystery. I'm Brooke. And I'm Sarah. And we both love mystery.
00:17:59
Speaker
Clued In Mystery is produced by Brooke Peterson and Sarah M. Stephen. Music is by Shane Ivers at Silvermansound.com. Visit us online at CluedInMystery.com or social media at CluedInMystery. If you liked what you heard, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or telling your friends.