For a course at the Oscher LifeLong Learning Institute at American University
Day: Thursday afternoons, 1:45 to 3:15 pm online
June 6 – 27
4 sessions On-line (location of building: 4801 Massachusetts Avenue, NW DC 20016)
Dr Ellen Moody
Women in and Writing Detective Fiction (a continuation of The Heroine’s Journey)
We will explore the genre of detective stories of the mystery-thriller type from the angle of the woman writer, detective, victim & murderer: our two books are classics from and dependent upon classic and/or very popular at the time 1930s detective novels: Dorothy Sayer’s Gaudy Night (set in a real early women’s college, which Sayers attended, it is also feminist academic and publishing satire & a love story); and P.D. James’s An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, which in many outward conventions combines the popular and acclaimed type with what readers expected post WW2, so like Sayers written in puzzle-clue tradition of Agatha Christie (today carried on by among others Anthony Horowitz). We’ll read only 2 novels as we’ve no time for more, but I will discuss two others, one from 1950s, Josephine Tey’s much admired The Daughter of Time, the case being that of Richard III Plantagenet’s murder of his two young nephews; and Susan Hill’s Various Haunts of Men, an anxiety-producing gothic contemporary 2008 thriller. This to bring in a wider & longer perspective. We’ll also see (outside class) and discuss (in class) a 1950s play/TV movie, J.B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls (as rewritten by Helen Edmunsen and directed by Aisling Walsh in 2015). This is a feminist literary history course, an outgrowth in one direction of the course I taught last summer: The [archetypal] Heroine’s Journey
Required Texts:
Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night, HarperCollins Bourbon book, ISBN 978-0-06-219653-8
P. D. James, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, Scribner’s, mostly recently reprinted 2019. ISBN 978-0-7432-1955-6
Required Movies:
An Inspector Calls. Scripted Helen Edmunsen, directed Aisling Walsh, a re-do of J.B Priestley’s original play (1945), adapted into a film in 1954 (featuring Alistair Sims as “Poole” in lieu of Goole). Available at Amazon Prime, Brit-Box, Vudu, and YouTube. Also as a DVD for sale, with an interesting feature by Priestley’s son.
Supplementary:
There are audio readings of both books; and you can buy the play for this movie (and full script for Gosford Park, complete with cast list and stills), but you do not at all need to
Priestley, J. B. An Inspector Calls and Other Plays. NY: Penguin, 2000 reprint of 1947 book. The script does not differ as much as one might think; what is dramatized differs.
Sophie Rundle as Eva Smith/Daisy Renton/Mrs Birling/Alice Grey confronts the “boss,” Ken Stoff as Arthur Birling, about to fire her for leading a strike (An Inspector Calls, 2015)
Format: The class will be a mix of informal lecture and group discussion.
June 6: 1st week: Introduction on detective versus spy fiction, the archetypal heroine, 1860s – 1960s; Dorothy Sayers and Lord Peter Wimsey detective fiction
June 13: 2nd week: Dorothy Sayers’ Gaudy Night, and Sayers’ life and a survey of her career.
June 20: 3rd week: Post WW2 mysteries/spy stories/thrillers: Priestley’s An Inspector Calls, as revised by Helen Edmunsen and Aisling Walsh. Importance of central detective; then recurring detectives and kinds of setting and/or place, esp in P.D.James.
June 27: 4th week: P. D. James’s An Unsuitable Job for a Woman. The evolution of the women’s detective and recent police procedural mysteries (e.g. Jane Tennison and Prime Suspect); and P. D. James’ later career, her Adam Dagliesh series, and James’ post-text to Jane Austen, Death Comes to Pemberley made into BBC TV 3 part movie. Only if we have time or people would like, I’ll discuss brilliant movie parody of the genre, especially in movies, Robert Altman and Julian Fellows’ Gosford Park (2001).
Edward Petherbridge as Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Walter as Harriet Vane (1987, Have His Carcase)
Recommended outside reading or watching (if you want to go further):
Brabazon, James. Dorothy Sayers: a biography. Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1981.
Cavender, Gray and Nancy C. Jurik. Justice Provocateur: Jane Tennison and Policing in Prime Suspect. Univ of Illinois, 2012.
Craig, Patricia and Mary Cadogan. The Lady Investigates: Women Detectives and Spies in Fiction. NY: St Martin’s 1981. Begins with mid-19th century figures.
James, P.D. Talking about Detective Fiction. NY: Knopf, 2009
Gosford Park. Directed Robert Altman, scripted Julian Fellowes. New Market Press, NY, n.d. Streams on Amazon Prime, YouTube, Vudu, and can be bought as a DVD with interesting features (e.g., voice-over commentary as you watch the film).
Hill, Susan. Various Haunts of Men. Simon Serailler series. 2004; London: Vintage; rpt 2008 US Version.
———–. Howards End is on the Landing: A Year of Reading from Home. London: Profile, 2009.
Kenney, Catherine. The Remarkable Case of Dorothy Sayers. Kent State, 1990. Superb close reading of all her writing
Klein, Kathleen Gregory. The Woman Detective: Gender and Genre. 2nd edition. Univ of Illinois, 1995. The best single book on women’s detective fiction, with the proviso she deals only with professional police officer-detectives.
Sayers, Dorothy. Unpopular Opinions. London: Camelot Press, 1946
Symons, Julian. Bloody Murder: From the Detective Story to the Crime Novel: A History. Faber and Faber, 1972. The best of all the surveys on the development of this very contemporary violent type.
Tey, Josephine. The Daughter of Time. This exists in many editions. I have a 1988 copy of the Simon and Schuster Touchstone books, 978-0-684-80386-9; and another by Pushkin Press (a very pretty one), ISBN 978-1782278429. If you have never heard of Richard III, he’s a controversial figure. An excellent video on the unearthing of his skeleton, will give you some insight into what is said about him. Tey’s book was of course written well before the skeleton was unearthed. Mathew Morris, The King Under the Car Park: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tAaGETTiLs&ab_channel=ArchaeologicalServices
Irony: one of the famous aspects of his character, that he was deformed, at one time disputed fiercely by the Richard III society, has become the basis for clinching the argument that the found skeleton is Richard III – especially by this society.
Young, Laurel A. P.D. James: A companion to the mystery fiction. McFarland, 2017
There was a Margaret Sutton who herself wrote the Judy Bolton series (1932-67)
Ellen And Jim Have A Blog, Two 