Agatha Christie
THE heavyweight champion of the ‘whodunnit’ genre deserves your vote here for two central reasons: the universality of her writing, and her otherworldly skill of imagination.
1. Storytelling is a basic human function and, when done well, it is universal: everyone gets it. Christie’s books are now 50 years old, yet don’t feel outdated. They are understandable for children, yet meaty enough for adults. They are rooted in Britain, yet have been shared across the world (translated into 103 languages). They are not pretentious, yet avoid being basic, and the general appeal of her work is evidenced: she wrote the Best-Selling Detective Novel of all time (And Then There Were None, 100 million copies) and the Longest Running Play Ever (The Mousetrap).
2. Is there anyone reading this who could write even one book with the twisting plot, misdirection and final conclusion that Christie is known for? Is there anyone who could do it 66 times? It seems to me that the capacity for telling gripping stories is the first job of a writer, and someone who does it with as much stamina and flair as Christie is deserving of any title.
Conrad Barclay
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is far more deserving of your vote than Agatha Christie. Not for nothing has Sherlock Holmes been named the most popular detective of all time and has been adapted with great success into many different forms of media over the years. The writing of Conan Doyle is gripping as Sherlock observes the most intricate of details, invisible to all others, allowing him to make deductions vital to the solving of each case. Another element of Conan Doyle’s writing that surpasses that of Agatha Christie is variation. His stories are for the most part kept short, each one containing its own entirely imaginative case, ranging from 'The Creeping Man' (a man who behaves like an ape) to The Hound of the Baskervilles (the famous plot involving the monstrous canine). Christie’s books are mostly “Who done it?” murder mysteries and are so lacking in originality that experts have even created a formula to work out the culprit.
The real differentiating factor between the works of the two authors is the depth of the characters involved. Holmes has an intriguing personality, for example his sporadic addiction to drugs during slow cases, his heightened smoking of a pipe when contemplating complex puzzles, and his overwhelming arrogance, unrivalled by Christie’s characters, that stems from his pride in baffling the police with his solutions. Of course the Sherlock Holmes stories also have running through them the continuous plot of his life in 221B Baker Street with Doctor Watson, giving the short stories another dimension. The well-known address is an enduring tourist attraction and relates the stories to the real world. All of this turns them into the most unforgettable detective series in the world.
Ben Pymont
The works Sir Arthur Conan Doyle produced have a vividness, a richness and a tangibility to the world they paint which makes them engrossing and immersive and when paired with the charisma their eccentric protagonist brings to every story, they have an appeal that cannot be denied. Certainly, the likes of Agatha Christie have their place but where the cream of Conan Doyle rises to the top is evident. The four Sherlock Holmes novels Conan Doyle pens have an individuality and a uniqueness to them with much of A Study in Scarlet devoted to telling the story of Jefferson Hope and The Hound of the Baskervilles famously lacking Sherlock Holmes for a considerable part of the novel. Conan Doyle manages to avoid the formulaic feel in his novels that Christie falls into the trap of on numerous occasions and deserves merit in other respects as well.
It is easy to overlook, in a modern world where crime novels have decidedly reached saturation point, just how pioneering Doyle’s novels were. The familiar pacing and plotting to his works, particularly his short stories, could be dismissed as repetitive but what is familiar to the modern day reader had a refreshing originality to the Victorians. The roles of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, the more complex and alien figure paired with the figure more relatable to the reader, is an example of a format that holds strong today. The reader develops a relationship with Sherlock Holmes over the course of the fifty six short stories and, although there will always be more memorable stories, notable examples being ‘The Speckled Band’ and ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’, and less memorable stories, the nuances to Sherlock Holmes’s character and the life Doyle’s writing breathes into the London setting make reading each story a rewarding experience.
Parallels can be drawn between the way the Holmes short stories and many other Victorian works of writing at the time were consumed which differs from the way books are published in the present day. The Holmes short stories were published monthly in the Strand Magazine with devotees eagerly awaiting the next instalment, similar to the way you might consume a television programme that airs weekly. There was an anticipation and excitement about the Holmes stories that is evidence towards the extent to which Doyle captured the imaginations of so many at the time and continues to do so. Christie deserves credit for the audacity and creativity of her plot twists, an avenue Doyle rarely goes down, but the quality of the writing and description of Conan Doyle give his stories a sharpness Christie lacks and makes the world of Victorian London which Doyle paints altogether more vivd and captivating than the world of the little Belgian detective.
Tom Kinirons
Many thanks to Conrad, Ben and Tom for their excellent contributions to the debate. Now it's your turn to exercise the little grey cells and vote to resolve this three-pipe problem (with the usual reminder that if you're reading this on your phone, you need to click the 'see web version' link at the bottom of the page to access the poll ...).
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