Wonder Of Women - Murder Stories: Celebrate the true pioneers of female literature

In the days when Britain ruled the waves and bestrode the world as its policeman and plunderer in chief it also subjugated half of its own people to second class status. Women were chattel and property. There were some exceptions based on wealth and birthright but for the overwhelming majority your lot was to fall in with the rules and do as you were told. Many did.

But whilst male society sought to place obstacles in the path to equality, it could not deny their literary talents, which many times they circumvented by using male pseudonyms. However, the soaring sales of magazines and periodicals during the Victorian Age meant they had voracious appetites for literature, whatever the sex of its gender.

Dozens of authors appeared to fill the need. Narratives had new ideas. Characters were emboldened by societal changes and the female voice taking responsibility.

The women included here are talents that dazzle. Put them up against anyone and they rise to the top. Whether they remain with an avid readership today or faded to obscurity with the passing of the times their quality remains undimmed.

1 - Women of Wonder - Murder - An Introduction

2 - The Murder In Saltashe Woods by Baroness Orczy

3 - A Jury of Her Peers by Susan Glaspell

4 - In The Dark by Edith Nesbit

5 - Was It An Illusion. A Parson's Story by Amelia Edwards

6 - Mrs Raeburn's Waxwork by Lady Eleanor Smith

7 - Talma Gordon by Pauline E Hopkins

8 - A Twin Identity by Edith Stewart Drewery

9 - Why Herbert Killed His Mother by Winifred Holtby

10 - The Octoroon's Revenge by Ruth D Todd

11 - An Expiation by Arabella Kenealy

12 - Water Running Out by Ethel Lina White

13 - Ben Pitcher's Elly by Mary E Mann

14 - No 5 Branch Line. The Engineer by Amelia Edwards

15 - The Mysterious Death on the Underground Railroad by Baroness Emmuska Orczy

16 - The 4.15 Express by Amelia Edwards