There are hundreds of satisfactory and satisfying British mystery writers whose works should be studied both for their own individual accomplishments and for their comments on the society in which they were published, in the last 150 years, but who have not received any critical comment lately.
    This volume is designed to correct that fault in a dozen of those unjustifiably neglected British authors: Wilkie Collins, A.E.W. Mason, G.K. Chesterton, H.C. Bailey, Anthony Berkeley Cox, Nicholas Blake, Michael Gilbert, Julian Symons, Dick Francis, Edmund Crispin, H.R.F. Keating, and Simon Brett.

Earl F. Bargainnier (–1987)  was Fuller E. Callaway Professor of English Language and Literature at Wesleyan College. A former president of the Popular Culture Association, he was the author of more than sixty articles and The Gentle Art of Murder: The Detective Fiction of Agatha Christie. He also edited Twelve Englishmen of Mystery and co-edited Cops and Constables.