Celebrating Female Authors: Golden-Age and Detection Club Crime Writers

I have long been an avid reader of detective novels, psychological thrillers, crime fiction and cosy bibliomysteries. In anticipation of National Crime Reading Month in June, this week’s blog post in the ‘Celebrating Female Authors’ series celebrates female authors from the Golden-Age of crime fiction and Detection Club Crime Writers.

The 1920s and 30s mark the era of Golden-Age fiction, which saw the prolific publication of classic murder mysteries and detective novels, most of a similar style and genre. Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, Dorothy L. Sayers are only a few of the many well-known detective writers of the time.

It was during the 1930s that the Detection Club was founded. This club consisted of a group of detective and crime writers including Dorothy L. Sayers, Anthony Berkeley, Freeman Wills Crofts, G. K. Chesterton, A.A. Milne and Agatha Christie. To join the club, new members had to follow a very particular initiation ceremony [1] which required solemnly promising to adhere to the Knox’s Commandments in their writing [2]. Some of the themes members of the Detection Club were forbidden to include in their novels were: ‘divine revelation, mumbo jumbo, jiggery-pokery, feminine intuition, coincidence or acts of God’ [3].

Mavis Doriel Hay

Biography

Very little is known about Mavis Doriel Hay. She was born February 1894, in Potter Bar, Middlesex [1]. While much of her work revolved around handicrafts, which she published under her married name, Mavis Fitzrandolph, Mavis Doriel Hay is also known for her three highly-praised detective novels which were published during the Golden Age of British detective fiction [2]. She died at the great age of 85 years on the 26th of August 1979 in Gloucestershire [1].

Literary Career

Mavis Doriel Hay wrote Murder Underground (1935-34) (which received high praise from Dorothy L. Sayers in an article in the 5798th issue of the Sunday Times, May 27th 1934), The Santa Klaus Murder (1936) and Death on the Cherwell (1935) [1], with the latter possibly being the most well-known of her three detective fiction works. Her detective novels have been reprinted in the British Library Crime Classics series [2].

However, her stint at writing detective novels was brief. Mavis Doriel Hay devoted her later career to the publication of books relating to crafts in Britain. These included: (1) Rural Industries of England and Wales (1929) (2) 30 Crafts (1950) (3) Traditional Quilting: Its Story and Practice (1954) (5) Quilting (1972) [2].

Links to Oxford

Sthildas south building.JPG
St Hilda’s College, Oxford

Mavis Doriel Hay was one of the first women to study at the University of Oxford – having matriculated at St Hilda’s College in 1913 [4] and studied there until 1916 [2]. Unlike her fellow male students at Oxford, however, she would not have received a degree from the University. Indeed, the University of Oxford only formally recognised female students in 1910 (only three years before Mavis Doriel Hay matriculated), and women were only first eligible for degrees in 1920, four years after Mavis Doriel Hay had left the university [3]!

A large willow tree where Tolkien used to walk
The River Cherwell, Oxford

Hay used St Hilda’s College as inspiration for the setting of ‘Persephone College’ in her book, Death on the Cherwell – not unlike Sayers’ Gaudy Night which was published later in the same year and similarly set in an imaginary Oxford college of a different name: Shrewsbury College [5]. In Hay’s book, students from Persephone College meet near the River Cherwell and discover the body of the unpopular college Bursar. Along with members from a neighbouring all-male college, these undergraduates attempt to investigate the suspicious death of the Bursar and find the culprit for this murder [6].

Death on the Cherwell tackles the important topic of women and their relationship with higher education in the early 1900s [5]. Like other female writers who use Oxford as a setting for their murder mysteries, such as Dorothy L Sayer’s as well as Gladys Mitchell, Mavis Doriel Hay no doubt used her experience attending a women’s college in the 1910s to inform her literary work and examine attitudes towards women who went to university [5].

References:

  1. http://carolwestron.blogspot.com/2015/08/mavis-doriel-hay.html
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mavis_Doriel_Hay
  3. https://www.st-hildas.ox.ac.uk/content/pictorial-timeline 
  4. https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.firstwomenatoxford.ox.ac.uk%2Ffiles%2Fstudents1878to1920-allcollegesfinalxlsx&wdOrigin=BROWSELINK
  5. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09574042.2020.1723334
  6. https://happinessisabook.com/fridays-forgotten-book-death-on-the-cherwell-by-mavis-doriel-hay/

Gladys Mitchell

Gladys Mitchell.png
Gladys Mitchell

Biography

Gladys Mitchell, or ‘Great Gladys’ as she was called by her friend and novelist Philip Larkin, was an English writer best known for her detective fiction, featuring characters such as Mrs Bradley, Laura Menzies and Timothy Herring. She was born in Cowley in Oxford on the 21st of April 1901 [1] to Annie Simmons and James Mitchell — her father having worked from age 13 as a scout at Oriel College [5].

Gladys Mitchell studied at Goldsmiths College where she received an Education Teacher’s Certificate in 1921. She then went on to study at University College London whereupon she received a diploma in English and European History in 1925 [11]. Following her education, Gladys Mitchell taught History, English and on occasions coached hurdling, while also writing numerous books alongside this [1].

She was an early member of the Detection Club, as well as the British Olympic Association [2] and the Crime Writer’s Association [1].

She died on the 27th of July 1983 in Corge Mullen, Dorset [1].

Literary Career

Gladys Mitchell was highly regarded as a detective writer throughout the 1930s. Her debut novel, Speedy Death, was the first crime novel of 66 featuring Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley [1], a consultant psychologist for the Home Office [4].

Gladys Mitchell subsequently wrote many more books under the pseudonyms of Malcolm Torrie (for her historical novels) and Stephen Hockaby (for detective stories featuring an architect named Timothy Herring) [1]. She also wrote children’s novels, and many of her novels have been made into radio adaptations and television series by the BBC [1].

Her books explored themes of witchcraft, the supernatural, occult, archaeology, myth and folklore and incorporated Freudian psychology, topics that were of interest to Mitchell and which she had been encouraged to continue researching by her close friend and fellow novelist Helen Simpson [1, 4, 11].

East range of First Quad
Oriel College, Oxford

Links to Oxford

Gladys Mitchell was born in Cowley in Oxford, and her father worked as a scout at Oriel College when he was only 13 years old [5]. Before that, he had received his education from the Cowley Fathers, an old male religious order of the Anglican Church in Oxford [6, 10].

The Weston Library holds Gladys Mitchell’s manuscript draft of one of her novels: The Greenstone Griffins [7]. It also has a correspondence between Gladys Mitchell and her friend and fellow author, Philip Larkin, in which she congratulates him on his text: The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse [8].

References:

  1. Gladys Mitchell – Wikipedia
  2. Gladys Mitchell: A biography
  3. Forgotten authors No 10: Gladys Mitchell | The Independent | The Independent
  4. Mitchell, Gladys (Maude Winifred) – Oxford Reference
  5. Gladys Mitchell: The Last of the Golden Age Writers
  6. https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/cowley-fathers
  7. Collection: Manuscript draft of The Greenstone Griffins by Gladys Mitchell | Bodleian Archives & Manuscripts (ox.ac.uk)
  8. Correspondence between Gladys Mitchell and Philip Larkin congratulating him on the final version of the Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse – File. Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse – Subject files – Second Deposit – Papers of Philip Arthur Larkin – Archives Hub (jisc.ac.uk)
  9. http://gadetection.pbworks.com/w/page/7930445/Detection%20Club%2C%20The
  10. https://archive.org/details/the-armchair-detective-v-18-n-04-1985-fall/page/352/mode/2up

Dorothy L. Sayers

Biography

Dorothy L Sayers 1928.jpg
Dorothy L. Sayers

Dorothy L. Sayers was a celebrated poet and world-renowned crime writer [2], best known for her series of detective novels featuring Lord Peter Wimsey [3]. She was born on the 13th of June 1893 to Reverend Henry Sayers and Helen Leigh [1] at Christ Church Cathedral School in Oxford, where her father was Cathedral Chaplain [3].

Following her education in Cambridgeshire, Dorothy L. Sayers won a scholarship to study at Somerville College in Oxford. She was one of the first women to study and graduate from the University of Oxford with a First in Modern Languages in 1915 [3]. Her qualification was not formally awarded, however, as it would take another 5 years for women to receive degrees [3].

Before turning to writing full-time, Sayers worked in publishing at Blackwell’s before then moving to London and coming up with the slogan ‘Guinness is good for you’ while working at S.H. Benson’s [4].

She died in December 1957 and was buried in Soho beneath St Anne’s Church, where she had worked as a warden in her later life [1].

Literary Career

Dorothy L. Sayers was an accomplished writer and is most well-known for her work in detective fiction. Following the publication of her poems in her 20s, she published her first novel in 1923, ‘Whose Body’, which featured Lord Peter Wimsey, a recurring amateur detective who appeared in over a dozen novels and short stories [8]. It was her early success in detective crime fiction that ultimately allowed Dorothy L. Sayers to financially support herself [8]. She became one of the original members of the Detection Club, and became President of the “secret” group between 1949 to 1957 – a position also held by other Golden-Age crime writers such as G. K. Chesterton and Agatha Christie during the 1940s [8].

As well as detective novels, Dorothy L. Sayers wrote plays, articles and completed numerous highly-praised academic translations [7]. In the 1930s and early 1940s, she wrote ‘The Zeal of Thy House’, a play performed at the Canterbury Cathedral at the then Dean’s request, which follows an architect, William of Sens, and explores themes of Christianity, religion and pride. Sayers subsequently wrote the controversial drama ‘The Man Born to Be King’, which depicts the life of Christ [7]. The latter received many objections as a result of Jesus being played by a human actor, and who spoke in modern English [7]. In her later career, following correspondences with writer Charles Williams, Sayers devoted much time and energy to the translation of Dante’s ‘The Divine Comedy’, which has been considered by some as Dorothy L. Sayers’ greatest accomplishment [7]. Sayers’ completed ‘Hell’ and ‘Purgatory’ in 1949 and 1955 respectively, however, died quite suddenly from a heart-attack before finishing the last volume ‘Paradise’.

Somerville College Hall
Somerville College, Oxford
Dorothy L. Sayers’ blue plaque in Oxford

Links to Oxford

For fans of Dorothy L. Sayers, or for those who enjoy walks with a literary twist, there are a few sites in Oxford that are linked to the author:

  1. Brewer Street: Dorothy L Sayers was born at Christ Church Cathedral School in Oxford, where her father was Cathedral Chaplain [3]. If you visit No1 Brewer Street, you will be able to see a commemorative blue plaque about Dorothy L. Sayers on the wall.
  2. Sommerville College: Dorothy L. Sayers received a scholarship to study at Sommerville College in 1912. It is one of the first two colleges in Oxford for women, founded in 1879.
  3. Balliol College: Dorothy L. Sayer’s fictional detective, Peter Wimsey, studied at Balliol College. It is possible to visit the college.
  4. St Cross Church: This church situated between St Cross and Manor Road is significant in Dorothy L. Sayers’ detective novels with Lord Peter Wimsey.

    The Eagle and Child pub off St. Giles Street, Oxford
  5. Christ Church College: The college archive at Christ church has a baptismal register on which Dorothy L. Sayers’ name appears [6]. And, a fairly tenuous link, however one of the characters from Sayers’ Gaudy Night, Lord Saint-George, was depicted as being a student at Christ Church.
  6. The Eagle and Child: The Eagle and Child is a pub in Oxford where members of the literary group, the Inklings (which included J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, C.S. Lewis, Owen Barfield and others), met on occasion in the 1930s and 40s to read aloud and receive feedback on their work. Although not a part of this group, Dorothy L. Sayers was friends with some of its members, including both C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams. Sayers attended the Socratic Club at Oxford while Lewis was president, and she read papers to this group. C.S. Lewis and Dorothy L. Sayers corresponded on occasion, and some of these letters can be found in Letters of C.S. Lewis and S. Lewis: A Biography. Having both known Charles William, Sayers and Lewis wrote a letter together to commemorate the 10th anniversary of William’s death [5]. The Eagle and Child, also known as ‘Bird and Baby’ can be found near Pusey Street in Oxford. Unfortunately, the pub shut during the COVID-19 pandemic.

References:

  1. https://www.sayers.org.uk/biography
  2. https://somethingrhymed.com/2015/04/01/agatha-christie-and-dorothy-l-sayers/
  3. https://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/blog/dorothy-l-sayers
  4. https://www.some.ox.ac.uk/eminent/dorothy-l-sayers/
  5. https://dc.swosu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1478&context=mythlore
  6. Dorothy L Sayers | Christ Church, Oxford University

Val McDermid

Val McDermid best-selling crime fiction novelist pictured at St Hilda's
Val McDermid

Biography

Val McDermid, born June 4th 1955 in Scotland, Fife, is a well-known crime novelist [2]. Another St Hilda’s College alumnus, Val McDermid studied English there and was one of the youngest and first student’s from a Scottish State School to be admitted [2]. Following her graduation, Val McDermid became a journalist, training in Devon and then moving to Glasgow and Manchester to work for national newspapers there (returning to Oxford only to captain and win the Christmas University Challenge in 2016) [2]. When in Manchester, she was reportedly one of only three women at a firm with a total of 137 journalists [7]. In a recent talk at the Sheldonian (that I was lucky enough to attend) Val McDermid spoke about the blatant misogyny women experienced in the workplace, highlighting how women were often tasked with reporting topics to do with ‘women’s issues’, and that it was only in the late 1970s that women were allowed to do night shifts and wear trousers like their male colleagues. It was during this time, working as a journalist, that Val McDermid published her first successful novel in 1987, Report for Murder [2].

Val McDermid has subsequently won various accolades for her contribution to crime writing, including the CWA Diamond Dagger and the LGBTQ Saints and Sinners Hall of Fame. She was also awarded an honorary doctorate in 2011 by the University of Sunderland, and elected as a Fellow to both the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Royal Society of Literature, and became a member of the much acclaimed Detection Club in 2000 [1].

For those who enjoy literary festivals (in particular, ones that solely revolve around crime writing!), Val McDermid also co-founded the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival [5], which this year takes place between the 20th and 23rd of July. During Val McDermid’s talk at the Sheldonian, I was also surprised to learn that Val McDermid is part of the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers band who played at Glastonbury a few years ago. In fact, Val McDermid is the lead singer of the group, and their band will be playing at the Agatha Christie Festival this year!

Literary Career

detective novels typical of the 1920s and 30s, like Agatha Christie’s ‘Body in the Library’. Indeed, Val McDermid has described her writing to fall within the ‘Tartan Noir’ genre [8], a genre particular to Scottish crime writers [9] characterised by darker and grittier storylines, and an exploration of Scotland’s people and landscapes [10].

My first introduction to Val McDermid novels was the Tony Hill and Carol Jordan series, which follows a forensic psychologist and detective working together to solve what tend to be increasingly grim cases. However, Val McDermid has written many other standalone books, as well as four more ongoing series following characters such as detective Karen Pirie, journalist Lindsay Gorden, Kate Brannigan and Allie Burns [2]. She has sold over 16 million novels, and these have been translated into over 40 languages [3]. Her Karen Pirie and Carol Jordan and Tony Hill books have both been adapted for television [4].

View of the Radcliffe Camera Library in Oxford
The Radcliffe Camera, Oxford

In addition to her crime fiction, Val McDermid has written a children’s book as well as a few non-fiction novels – some to do with forensic science but others to do with Scotland – its landscapes and how she used them as inspiration for some of her novels [2]. As well as books, Val McDermid has also written plays, TV series, drama series and documentaries over the radio [2].

Links to Oxford

Like other crime writers Mavis Doriel Hay and P.D. James, except over 40 years later, Val McDermid attended St Hilda’s College to read English, which she thoroughly enjoyed [6].

Attending Val McDermid’s talk at the Sheldonian as a library trainee, it was also nice to learn that Val McDermid loved using the libraries in Oxford, with the Radcliffe Camera being one of her favourite study spaces [6]. McDermid has even used the building in a “very final, dramatic scene” in a book, in which the characters have an “unconventional use for the Radcliffe” – hopefully this “unconventional use” of the library does not include the characters bringing in any food or drink!

References:

  1. Val McDermid – Wikipedia
  2. Welcome to the official website of the celebrated and best selling Scottish crime writer Val McDermid…
  3. Val McDermid: ‘To survive, you had to be twice as good as the guys’ | Val McDermid | The Guardian
  4. Val McDermid – Literature (britishcouncil.org)
  5. Val McDermid – Royal Society of Literature (rsliterature.org)
  6. VAL MCDERMID (ST HILDA’S, 1972) | Oxford Alumni
  7. Val McDermid: a life in writing | Books | The Guardian
  8. Val McDermid on the Remarkable Rise of Tartan Noir ‹ CrimeReads
  9. BBC – Tartan Noir: A very strange beast
  10. Wanner2014.pdf (ed.ac.uk)

Agatha Christie

Black and white portrait photograph of Christie as a middle-aged woman
Agatha Christie

Biography

Of course, the list about Golden-Age crime writers would not be complete without celebrating the great Agatha Christie. Born in Torquay in 1890 to Frederick Alvah Miller and Clarissa Margaret Boehmer, Agatha Christie was, and still is, the best-selling detective novelist of all time [1, 2] (and after reading texts like The Murder of Roger Ackroyd or The ABC Murders, it is not surprising as to why!).

A blue circular plaque outside St Martin's Theatre in London, with white lettering. It reads: The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie, the world's longest running play had its 50th anniversary performance at this Theatre on November 25 2002
Blue plaque outside St Martin’s Theatre in London

Billions of copies of her books have been sold worldwide, in a range of different languages [1]. And, her play ‘The Mousetrap’, which opened in 1952 in London’s West End, is the world’s longest-running play [1].

Like Gladys Mitchell, Val McDermid and Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie was a member of the Detection Club. In fact, alongside other successful detective novelists, such as Anthony Berkeley, Dorothy L. Sayers and Freeman Wills Crofts, Christie was one of the founding members of this society [9]. She even became president of the club but only after she had received absolute confirmation that someone else would be in charge of delivering public speeches as she was quite shy.

After a long and very successful career, Agatha Christie died on the 12th of January 1976 at age 85.

Literary Career

A black and white photograph of a large three-story house poking up from behind a few trees.
Ashfield, Agatha Christie’s family home

Although her mother did not want her daughter to read until aged eight, Agatha Christie taught herself to read by age five and began writing poems when she was still only a child [1] (her first piece of writing was a poem called The Cow Slip) [10]. She received no formal education until she was sent to finishing school in Paris in 1906, where she became an accomplished pianist [1, 6]. By this time, at 18 years old, Christie enjoyed writing short stories and novels which remained unpublished (including Snow Upon the Desert and The House of Beauty), and received feedback from family members, friends, as well as the author Eden Phillpotts who lived close to Ashfield, Agatha Christie’s family home (Peril at End House is dedicated to Phillpotts).

A black and white photograph of Agatha Christie in the uniform she wore as a nurse and dispenser when working as a member of the Voluntary Aid Detachment. The uniform consists of a white hat and a white apron with a cross on the front.
Agatha Christie in her VAD uniform

It was not until the 1910s, during the First World War working in a Red Cross hospital in Torquay, that Agatha Christie turned to writing detective stories after, rather fortunately for all Agatha Christie fans, being dared to do so by her older sister, Madge [11]. Using her knowledge of poisons, which she had gained while working as a member of the Voluntary Aid Detachment as a nurse and as a dispenser (for which she passed several exams to qualify as an apothecary’s assistant), Agatha Christie wrote her debut novel ‘The Mysterious Affair at Styles’ which was published in 1919 [5] and featured the now world-renowned Belgian moustached-detective: Hercule Poirot [1]. Initially, the denouement happened in a courtroom, and it was Christie’s publisher John Lane who insisted that the final chapter be reworked. This culminated in the much-loved final chapters in which Poirot, or another detective, gathers all the suspects in one room and dramatically reveals the true murderer (or murderers), an ending typical of many of Christie’s novels.

Peter Ustinov as Poirot in the adaptation of Agatha Christie's Evil Under the Sun. He has grey hair and a grey moustache. He is also wearing a grey suit with a black bow-tie. He his holding his hands up palms facing forwards, and his eyes are looking to his left.
Peter Ustinov as Poirot in the adaptation of Evil Under the Sun

Incidentally, John Lane was one of the founders of The Bodley Head, a publishing house founded in 1887 which, perhaps unsurprisingly, took its name from a bust of Sir Thomas Bodley (founder of the Bodleian Library) which sat above the shop door [14].

While at the hospital, Agatha Christie also wrote, alongside friends with whom she worked, articles for their handmade and light-hearted hospital magazine kept at the Christie Archive Trust in Wales. The group called themselves ‘The Queer Women’. For those interested, BBC iPlayer currently has a series of brilliant documentaries about Agatha Christie, in which Lucy Worsley flicks through pages from the magazine (about 30 minutes into the first episode) [12].

Following the war, Agatha Christie and her husband and daughter, Archie Christie and Rosalind Christie, moved to Sunningdale and named their house ‘Styles’ [3]. Agatha Christie continued to write and publish novels including ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd’, ‘Murder on the Links’ and ‘The Man in the Brown Suit’, among others [14].

Towards the later stages of her career, Agatha Christie re-married and travelled extensively with her archaeologist husband, Max Mallowan, to watch and support archaeological digs. One such excavation site that she visited was Howard Carter’s in the Valley of the King’s in 1922, while Carter and his team were working on the excavation of Tutankhamun’s tomb [16].  Agatha Christie’s interest in archaeology and the Middle-East is evident when reading her books, including ‘Murder on the Orient Express’, ‘Murder in Mesopotamia’, ‘Death on the Nile’ and many more.

A black and white photograph of Agatha Christie and Max Mallowan in 1950, leaning over a desk. Max Mallowan is smoking a pipe and Agatha Christie is looking at a paper with two photographs on it.
Agatha Christie and Max Mallowan

Although mainly known for her detective novels, Agatha Christie wrote different types of novels under pseudonyms including: Mary Westmacott (a combination of her second name and the surname of distant family relatives) and Agatha Mallowan (using her married name) [17]. Completely anonymous as Mary Westmacott, Agatha Christie had the freedom to write novels of a different genre to her expected detective fiction [18]. Christie wrote 6 novels as Mary Westmacott: Giant’s Bread (1930), Unfinished Portrait (1934) Absent in the Spring (1944), The Rose and the Yew Tree (1947), A Daughter’s a Daughter (1952) and The Burner (1956), and these were often described as ‘romantic novels’ at the time. Nevertheless, Agatha Christie’s daughter and grandson label these more as biographical novels, dealing with human psychology, relationships and love [18, 19]. Unfortunately, in 1946 it was discovered by readers that Agatha Christie and Mary Westmacott were one and the same [1], and Christie no longer had the opportunity to indulge in the freedom of writing anonymously as Westmacott.

Following Agatha Christie’s second marriage to Max Mallowan, Christie occasionally wrote under her married name, Agatha Mallowan. Most of what she published as Agatha Mallowan had to do with archaeology and the archaeological digs she visited while accompanying her husband.

Links to Oxford

A photograph of Winterbrook House in Wallingford. The house has a large white door, and it is sitting behind a small black gate and large hedges.
Winterbrook House in Wallingford
A photograph of the Wallingford Museum. Light grey stonework with brown-red roof tiles.
Wallingford Museum

Agatha Christie lived in Winterbrook House in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, with her second husband, archaeologist and All Souls fellow Max Mallowan, for 42 years [21]. He and Agatha Christie met in 1928 at an archaeological site she visited at Ur. Two years later, she and Mallowan were married in Edinburgh at St Cuthbert’s Church – Agatha Christie had a few reservations about the age gap between them (she was 39 years old and her husband was 26), and so their marriage certificate states that Christie was 37 and Mallowan was 31.

For those who are Agatha Christie fans, I would highly recommend the Agatha Christie-themed walking tour in Wallingford, Oxfordshire. Below are a few places you can visit on this self-directed tour (as listed on the helpful Agatha Christie trail guide):

  1. Wallingford Museum: The Wallingford Museum has a small Agatha Christie exhibition, with photographs of Christie, handwritten letters, and quotes from those who met Agatha Christie while she lived in Wallingford. You can pick up a leaflet for the Agatha Christie trail guide, and (for Midsomer Murders fans) you can collect a leaflet for the Midsomer Murders trail in Wallingford.
  2. A photograph of the Corn Market - a beige building with two columnsm 4 large rounded windows and a black door with railings outside.
    Corn Market

    Market Place: In the Market Place you will be able to see the Corn Exchange which was built in 1856 and now hosts the Sinodum Players. This drama group was of interest to Agatha Christie, and in 1951 she became their President. This was only under the condition that she did not need to attend official functions. When she attended the plays, the same two seats were reserved for Agatha Christie and her husband Max Mallowan, and a complimentary box of chocolates was also offered to her. She asked for her attendance not to be announced [23].

  3. Winterbrook House: This is where Agatha Christie lived with her husband Max Mallowan for 42 years. It is privately owned now, but it is possible to glimpse the blue plaque stuck beside the front door to the house.
  4. St Mary’s Church: After a half-hour (ish) walk through the country, you’ll find St Mary’s Church where Agatha Christie is buried. Her gravestone has a quote from the Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser. Agatha Christie is buried with her husband. Unfortunately, his title as ‘Archaeologist’ was misspelt on the gravestone!
    A photograph of St Mary's Church
    St Mary’s Church, Cholsey

    Colour photograph of a sandstone headstone marking the place where Agatha Christie is buried.
    Agatha Christie’s gravestone
  5. Mary Mead: About 10 minutes walk from St Mary’s Church, you’ll find a small road sign spelling out ‘St Mary Mead’ where, for those in the know, a certain literary character of the name Jane Marple resides.

Fun Facts

  1. Agatha Christie was the first British woman to surf standing up.
  2. Agatha Christie wrote N or M? during World War II, a wartime novel featuring a certain ‘Major Bletchley’. Christie’s choice of ‘Major Bletchley’ as a name for her character in the novel, led to a small investigation by MI5 to ensure that Christie had not guessed what truly was going on at Bletchley Park. She later revealed that she named her unlikeable character ‘Bletchley’ as a revenge for when her train from Oxford to London got stuck at Bletchley for a considerable length of time [22].

References:

  1. About Agatha Christie – The world’s best-selling novelist – Agatha Christie
  2. Agatha Christie – Wikipedia
  3. ‘I just wanted my life to end’: the mystery of Agatha Christie’s disappearance | Biography books | The Guardian
  4. When the World’s Most Famous Mystery Writer Vanished – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
  5. How Agatha Christie’s wartime nursing role gave her a lifelong taste for poison | UK news | The Guardian
  6. How Agatha Christie’s Terrible Experience As WWI Nurse Helped Inspire Hercule Poirot (warhistoryonline.com)
  7. How Agatha Christie Became an Expert on Poison | Time
  8. https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/f/1lj314/TN_cdi_proquest_reports_2722240220
  9. The Detection Club – Martin Edwards Books
  10. http://wdhg.org.uk/presentations/Agatha%20Christie%20in%20Devon.pdf
  11. https://www.agathachristie.com/en/about-christie#christies-life
  12. https://www.ft.com/content/4ba2d16d-2dce-49d8-bae6-625f18c3a0f1
  13. https://www.agathachristie.com/en/news/2016/book-of-the-month-the-mysterious-affair-at-styles
  14. https://collections.reading.ac.uk/special-collections/collections/the-bodley-head-ltd-publisher/
  15. https://www.agathachristie.com/en/about-christie
  16. The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt by Toby Wilkinson; Myths and Legends of Ancient Egypt by Joyce Tyldesley; and Egyptian Dawn by Robert Temple | History books | The Guardian
  17. access_points_and_headings.pdf (cambridge.org)
  18. Mary Westmacott, the real Agatha Christie – Peter Harrington Journal – The Journal
  19. Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case by Agatha Christie – Agatha Christie
  20. How Agatha Christie’s Terrible Experience As WWI Nurse Helped Inspire Hercule Poirot (warhistoryonline.com)
  21. Max Mallowan | All Souls College (ox.ac.uk)
  22. Agatha Christie was investigated by MI5 over Bletchley Park mystery | Agatha Christie | The Guardian
  23. http://www.wallingfordmuseum.org.uk/ 

Celebrating Female Authors: Jan Morris

I first knew of Jan Morris as a name attached to several ‘travel’ books while I was working as a bookseller – as much as she herself resisted the label of being a travel writer. Not very much later in that same role, an elderly gentleman told me about how she had publicly transitioned as a woman, some time after her account of the ascent of Everest. Both these facts suddenly illuminated the figure behind the very beautifully but impersonally published perennial titles of hers that we stocked: Oxford, Venice, Spain etc.

By the time she passed away in 2020 I had seen several more of her memoirs and essays published, and I had a much fuller sense of this woman who had typified transgender identity for several generations of the reading public. I felt like I missed her for what she meant to many people, even if I had been perhaps too young, but mostly too ignorant, to have read her work in her lifetime.

 

Biography

Jan Morris was born in Clevedon, Somerset, in 1926. She was educated in Oxford first at Christ Church Cathedral School, where she was a chorister.1  After enlisting and serving in the British army in Italy and Palestine, she returned to Oxford to undertake a degree at Christ Church College.2 During this time she was also had a stint as editor of Cherwell, the student newspaper.

A Photograph of Tom Quad, Christchurch College Oxford: A gothic styled sandstone quadrangle, with lawn and statue set within.
Image credit: Dmitry Djouce (Distributed without alteration according to license: CC BY https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)

Her early career as a journalist was crowned by the report to the Sunday Times of Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norgay’s ascent of Mount Everest in 1953, with later prominent reporting on the first proof of French collaboration with Israel in the Suez conflict, 1956.3

In 1974, her account of her gender transition, Conundrum, became a worldwide bestseller, and is an early example of a transgender narrative in the public eye. Reviews from the time are not altogether as hostile as might be expected, but some critics thought that Morris’ writing was incompatible with  womanhood, for example Rebecca West’s New York Times review.4 There seems to be an uncritical belief in an écriture féminine to which, they argue, Morris does not conform. This particular branch of feminist thought, that certain styles of writing are better able to express and demonstrate women’s perspectives, might be something that we find more problematic as an assertion today.

 

Favourite Book 

As a reader of fiction, especially science fiction, more than the genres Morris most often wrote in, I love Last Letters from Hav.5 I think it’s wonderfully uncanny, as a result of the sense of credibility with which Morris imbues a fictional place. The recent editions are accompanied by an introduction from Ursula K. Le Guin, which is a sensible publishing decision; fans of Le Guin’s novels, whose science fiction elements draw on imagined or speculative social systems, will find similar care taken by Morris to construct an imagined society in a moment of crisis.

 

Things to see in Oxford relating to Jan Morris

Morris’ connection to Oxford is obviously tied closely to Christ Church College. The Cathedral is publically accessible for services and prayer, with choral services on Sundays at 11am and evensongs Tuesday through Sunday at 6pm. Copies of Cherwell can be called up to Bodleian reading rooms, including volumes from Jan Morris’ tenure as editor.

Morris’ favourite places to see, for those wanting to follow in her footsteps, include the tomb of Dr. Richard Baylie, which can be viewed within the eponymous chapel on tours of St John’s. Morris noted that ‘he is dressed in his academicals, and is leaning with one knee cocked against a pile of books; his forefinger keeps his place in one volume, and he is looking preoccupied up into the sky, as if his train of thought has momentarily escaped the argument of the page, and true to the Oxford method, has soared away to more celestial syllogisms’.6

A photograph of the memorial to Richard and Elizabeth Baylie. A stone carving of Richard Baylie depicts him lying at ease, resting on a pile of books in academic dress.
Image credit: St John’s College, University of Oxford (Distributed without alteration according to license: CC BY-NC: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)

Morris’ writing on Oxford is certainly rooted in time; her description of Summer Eights seems farcical, where men rowed and women looked ‘vacuously’ on asking brothers to explain the crews, before retiring as  ‘happy little groups of people, white and blue and polka-dotted, strolling through the meadows’.7 This seems a far cry from Summer Eights today, the interspersed men’s and women’s crews, with onlookers of all varieties far too drunk on warm, fruitless Pimms to recognise all but the first boats in each division, all to the competing club music emanating from each boathouse’s gym.

One point on which Morris and I definitely agree is in the best treasure in Oxford: the Alfred Jewel. An enamel portrait (of Christ, most likely) in a gold setting, fronted by a thick piece of quartz, the jewel is on permanent display at the Ashmolean, and represents the energy with which Alfred sought to revitalise literacy during his reign. Modern scholarship is confident that the jewel is the end piece of an aestel, a rod for pointing to a text as it is read; several were donated to Alfred’s bishops alongside manuscripts of Gregory the Great’s Pastoral Care, newly translated into Old English.8 As a symbol of Alfred’s intention to associate wealth, prestige and learning, it is a powerful and affective piece.


  1. Jan Morris, Conundrum. (London: Faber & Faber, 2018).
  2. Richard Lea, ‘Jan Morris, historian, travel writer and trans pioneer, dies aged 94’, Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/nov/20/jan-morris-historian-travel-writer-and-trans-pioneer-dies-aged-94 [accessed 20th March 2023]
  3. Lea, ‘Jan Morris, historian, travel writer and trans pioneer, dies aged 94′.
  4. Rebecca West, ‘Conundrum’, New York Times. 14 April 1974, p. 5.
  5. Jan Morris, ‘Last Letters from Hav’ in Hav (Chatham: Faber and Faber, 2006), pp 1-187.
  6. Jan Morris, Oxford (Cary: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 161.
  7. Morris, Oxford. p. 133.
  8. Leslie Webster, Anglo-Saxon Art. (London: British Museum Press, 2012).

 

Things to Do and Places to See!

Quite a lot of graduate trainees end up relocating to Oxford for the job. It can be quite lonely moving to a new city – your old friends/family might be far away, you don’t know anyone local and you may struggle with living alone. Despite this, Oxford is a lovely place and definitely worth making the most of while you’re here! Hopefully, this post will give you some ideas of where to start out exploring. Many of the places you can enjoy in your own company, and some are free of charge. And to those who already know Oxford, this might just introduce you to some new places, or give you that push to check out somewhere you’ve been meaning to go for ages.

 

Town Entertainment

The board from a boardgame with a variety of drinks around it, as well as counters, cards, a small black teapot and the corner of someone's sandwich.
Board games and drinks at Thirsty Meeples! (photo credit: Georgina Moore)

Thirsty Meeples – roll a dice at Thirsty Meeples on Gloucester Green, a relaxed and fun board game café for new players and long-term fans. The friendly team are always on hand with recommendations in case choosing between the thousand games gets overwhelming. You book a three hour slot online, then pay a cover charge (currently £6/per adult if you order some food or drink, or £7.50 for just gaming). Then for those three hours, you can play as many games as you like! Have a sweet Oxford Fog latte in the afternoon or a cheeky cocktail on Friday night (or vice versa, I’m not one to judge).  They also serve sandwiches, snacks, and cakes, and offer an impressive tea selection. One final thing: the board games have SHELF MARKS. You can even get your shelf-organisation fix on the weekends… they don’t call it their ‘board game library’ for nothing (written by: Georgina Moore, 2021/2022 Graduate Trainee).

Cowley Road Charity Shop – Cowley has a reputation as the ‘student area’ of Oxford – its bustling main road is full of fun independent shops and eateries. For those wanting a break from typical high-street fashion brands, we recommend the charity and vintage shops that can be found here.

Hinksey Pool – a lovely open-air swimming pool located next to Hinksey Park. Tickets can be purchased on a pay-as-you-go basis, or you can sign up for membership. A nice way to cool off after work on a warm day.

The Covered Market – dating back to the 1770s, this historic building holds an array of independent craft shops, food stalls, a florist and many cafés. A firm favourite of the trainees and the Oxford student population is Moo Moo’s Milkshakes, a family-run milkshake stall offering a range of flavours to enjoy separately or experimentally combine…

G&Ds – the G&D ice cream cafés are a great place to meet up with other trainees at the end of the working day. They are renowned for their delicious ice cream but also serve coffee, bagels, waffles and other deserts. There are currently three located around Oxford: George & Danver on St Aldates, George & Davis on Little Clarendon Street and George & Delila on Cowley Road. The music is great too, as long as you’re a fan of the old classics like ABBA!

St Mary the Virgin Tower, University Church – University Church played a very important role in the University’s administration around a thousand years ago. It even served as the first library before Duke Humphries was built! Today, it is a beautiful historic building in which to worship or rest and reflect. For £5 you can climb the tower (the oldest part of the church) and see some amazing views over Oxford. The Old Congregation House attached also holds a café with indoor and outdoor seating.

Oxford Castle and Prison – the tour costs around £15 and involves a lot of stairs, but lasts about an hour and is a great insight into some local history, with excellent views from the top of the tower if you go on a clear day! Would recommend for entertaining guests who like history but are unimpressed by libraries (written by: Josie Fairley Keast, 2021/22 Graduate Library Trainee).

 

Theatre and Cinema

The red entrance sign of the 'Old Fire Station', which sticks out over the street. The entrance is made from over stone and the words 'corn exchange' are above the red doors, showing the building's historical function.
The Old Fire Station entrance on George Street

Ultimate Picture Palace – a wonderful independent cinema on Cowley Road which showcases a range of independent (sometimes quirky!) films. The bar serves ice cream from the trainee’s favourite G&Ds ice cream parlour and under 26’s can sign up for the Five Pound Film Pass, which reduces ticket prices to just £5!

The Playhouse, New Theatre, The North Wall – The New Theatre on George Street and The Oxford Playhouse (opposite the Ashmolean on Beaumont Street)  are considered Oxford’s main commercial theatres and play host to the UKs most popular plays, musicals and theatricals. Father out in Summertown and on a more intimate scale, The North Wall Arts Centre provides classes, exhibitions, gigs, comedy nights and family events. It also supports young and/or emerging writers and performers.

The Old Fire Station – located on George Street, this arts centre is an affordable, community-rooted alternative to the New Theatre. The Old Fire Station is home to two charity organisations: the homelessness charity ‘Crisis’ and ‘Arts at the Old Fire Station’ (AOFS), which aims to involve people of all backgrounds in the performing arts. They offer standard price tickets for £13 as well a ‘pay less’ and ‘pay more’ option, the idea being that the ‘pay more’ ticket holders will cover the difference for those who can’t afford standard prices. The atmosphere is very warm, fun and inclusive, and many performers hang around for a chat in the foyer after the show!

 

Free Entertainment

Oxfordshire County Library – located near the entrance to Westgate shopping centre, this public library is a warm friendly space with all the sections you could want, including literature, fiction, history, local history, nature and poetry. A borrowing card is free and also gives you access to the library’s computers (including internet).

A texidermy albatross in a glass and wooden case standing on the stone-flagged floor of the Museum of Natural History.
Albatross at the Oxford Museum of Natural History

Museum of Natural History – although taxidermy might not be everyone’s cup of tea, the Natural History Museum uses it for educational purposes to bring to life a whole array of creatures. My personal favourite is the albatross – he is enormous! What is particularly great about this museum is that it all fits in one big room: no risk of walking in an overwhelmed daze over endless different floors, ending up exhausted by the end of the day…It is also nice to see that everyone gets the same irresistible urge to put their head between the jaws of the T-Rex skeleton! There are plenty of interactive exhibits for children, as well as a gift shop and a coffee stand outside. The Pitt Rivers Museum of archaeology and anthropology is also located just behind the Natural History Museum, crammed to the ceiling with fascinating artefacts.

Evensong – the majority of colleges hold an Evensong service on a Sunday afternoon/evening. Some colleges with bigger choral traditions will have services in the week as well.  Keble, Queens, Merton, Magdalen, New, and Christchurch choirs are all recommended. The services are free, open to anyone, and require little audience participation compared to other types of service such as Communion. It’s a great way to hear good choirs for free and experience a nice space for calm and reflection.

Oxford Botanical Gardens – thought to be Britain’s oldest botanical gardens, the Oxford Botanical Gardens were founded in 1621 to supply the University’s medical students with useful herbs and plants. In the Walled Garden section, you can see the layout of the beds in methodical rows reflects this past. It is a lovely space to relax with a book or study the different plants and their purposes. Or you might want to explore the different hothouses, which include the ‘Rainforest House’ (featuring the pineapple plant!), the ‘Water Lily House’ and the ‘Conservatory’. Several literary sculptures lurk in the gardens for you to find, including the famous Cheshire Cat and a daemon from Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series. There is even a ‘Lyra’s Bench’, which Pullman used as the setting of Will and Lyra’s first meeting.  Entrance is free with your Univ/Bod card!

The Headington Shark – a (very unique) art installation in the Headington area, not far from the Oxford Brookes library. There are also some nice places to eat and several charity shops nearby, if you wanted to make an afternoon of it (written by: Josie Fairley Keast, 2021/22 Graduate Library Trainee).

 

Nature Spots

Brown and white cat sleeping beside a potted plant on the roof of a dark pink, light pink and yellow coloured canal boat, with green foliage behind.
Cat sleeping on the roof of a canal boat (photo credit: Georgina Moore)

The Thames Towpaths – the Thames Towpath runs between Foley Bridge and the West Oxford area of Osney (where many of the graduate trainee training sessions take place), right through to Portland Meadow and beyond. There is also a towpath from central Oxford out to Jericho, which almost reaches Summertown. These paths are great for spotting the local water-loving wildlife, such as shoals of spawning fish and plenty of geese and ducks/ducklings in spring! My favourite spots to date are a black kingfisher near Portland Meadow and Eddie the Osney Heron (who has his own Facebook page). Portland Meadow is even a popular spot to swim if you’re feeling brave enough!

An iron fence in the foreground enclosing a green meadow, with black and white cows grazing on bright green grass. The sky above is blue with wispy clouds, and there is a belt of green trees behind.
Cows in Christchurch Meadow

Christchurch Meadow – a big green space right in the centre of Oxford, sometimes home to rare English Longhorn cows… The path takes you down to the Thames (where you will often see row teams practicing on the water), and then you can choose whether to loop back along the Cherwell or carry on to the University boathouses. Make sure you are aware of the opening closing times though, or you may get locked in!

University Parks – located conveniently in Central Oxford, these Parks hold a number of sports grounds as well various nature trails, such as the Oak and Thorn walks or along the River Cherwell. The Parks’ website features a helpful map of these routes, as well as a guide on the different types of trees found along them.

An expansive green park in the foreground with a view of the Oxford towers in the distance. A person stands by fencing on the right hand side, and trees frame both sides of the photograph.
Oxford at sunset from South Park (photo credit: Isabel Salter, 2021/22 Graduate Trainee)

For example, the Oak Walk features a Tibetan Whitebeam tree which blooms with tiny white flowers in late spring. The South Walk also takes you past the ‘Genetic Garden’, dedicated to genetics researcher Professor Cyril Dean Darlington. Darlington first established the garden in 1964 to showcase the evolutionary spectacle of plants, and many of the original specimens are still there.

South Park – for trainees living in Cowley, South Park might be a closer alternative than University Parks for getting out into some green space. It consists of 50 acres of parkland and offers some lovely views over Oxford, which allowed one of this year’s trainee cohort to get an excellent shot of Oxford at sunset…

Doing something different: tours of the Bodleian

I’ve said on previous occasions that the Bodleian is as much a museum as it is a library, with its ancient and delicate collections being the main exhibit. However, the buildings that constitute the Bodleian are themselves of great historical interest. Recently I found this out for myself when I volunteered my services as a tour guide to the Historic Venues Team. Although the Bodleian possesses a core team of paid staff  who deal with tourists visiting the site, many of the guides are unpaid volunteers who do it as a labour of love.  I saw this as an opportunity to combine my knowledge and skills as a librarian with my passionate interest in history. So, over the last few weeks, I have been giving tours on weekends to groups of interested visitors, eager to learn more about one of the biggest and oldest English language libraries in the world. I have thoroughly enjoyed the experience and I have decided to continue giving tours until I leave my job at the beginning of August.

I thought I would blog about this because I now wish that I had discovered the volunteer scheme sooner: I hope this post will alert future graduate trainees (and maybe other OU librarians) to its existence. Not only do you learn a great deal about the Bodleian’s history but you get really valuable practice at public speaking as well: this is a key skill but not one that is really developed by any library training courses.  It can also be enormous fun, as I am sure the slightly tipsy group of seniors I had to show around last weekend would agree!