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Aarav Anil, Junior School Why did mystery fiction thrive during the interwar period? Page
Saul Grenfell, Junior School, gre001@habsboys.org.uk
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Everyone is familiar with the eccentric Belgian Poirot, and the complex plot of Murder on the Orient Express, but almost 100 years on, was there a reason for the ‘Golden age’ of mystery fiction in the interwar period?
After the Great War, 22 million were dead and another 20 million were injured. Many soldiers didn’t make it back to their families, and people in Britain were in a time of discomfort, feeling that they personally obtained nothing from a war which took 5 years and the lives of members of their family.
But economically, the war brought prosperity to some, especially in Britain and the US. The Treaty of Versailles, signed by the Allied parties and Germany, promised that Germany would pay 132 billion marks - which is over £300 billion in today’s money - to the Allied powers for civilian damage. Whilst this placed Germany in a terrible state, it caused great cultural change and technological advance in the ‘roaring twenties’ with considerable impact in London, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York.
There were lots of new inventions. Before the war, automobiles were rare and very costly, thought to be luxury goods. But afterwards, the Ford Motor Company mass produced the Ford Model T and had sold 15 million units by 1927. In the eight years from 1923 to 1931 car ownership in Britain almost trebled from just over 300,000 to over 900,000.
Radios also were revolutionary at the time, and whilst expensive, were valued. Cinema and sound films expanded in the twenties as well. While this change was great for society, many were left confused and couldn’t keep up with the fast pace of ground-breaking change. This led to a boom in mystery fiction.
Why mystery novels? They are books centred around death, with the main theme that people who appear kind and trustworthy shouldn’t be trusted at all. But they can give a sense of comfort to the reader.
As an example, let’s use Agatha Christie’s The Mysterious Affair at Styles. Only one crime is committed which is the poisoning of Emily Inglethorp, and as we travel through the story Poirot, and his assistant
Hastings learn more about the death and the people surrounding it, and we eventually learn who did it.
Whilst the book, and most other examples of mystery fiction, are centred around death or a crime, everybody learns the culprit at the end, who gets to face justice, leaving everyone satisfied. People whom you trust, might not be worthy of it at the end, but uncertainty is resolved.
Themes in this book are shared in other mystery fiction and Agatha Christie was one of the best-selling and most widely translated authors of the time. This is because she mainly wrote about local and community crimes, also referred to as ‘cosy’ mysteries. These don’t involve death larger than the local town, village or manor house which gives a sense of comfort and warmth when the community is free from crime at the end.
I think the reason why mystery fiction prospered in the interwar period is that after a devastating war like no other had killed 20 million with long trench warfare and new weapons like the mighty tank introduced in the process and many were finding it hard to keep up with the rapid change of the roaring twenties, there was great uncertainty which mystery fiction could solve by giving comfort, justice and order to an environment of uncertainty.
People wanted things they could cope with which could get resolved and mystery novels were on a local, domestic scale and both of these factors gave reassurance in a fast-moving, troubled time, which boosted mystery fiction as it was exactly what people were looking for.
If you look at the best-selling authors of the twenties: A.E.W. Mason, C.H.B. Kitchin, Agatha Christie, R. Austin Freeman, SS Van Dine, Dorothy Sanders and Earl Derr Biggers, you will notice that they all come from Britain and America, countries going through rapid change, and also heavily scarred from the Great War.
When you next see the elaborately moustached Poirot on the TV or go past a Dorothy Sanders or an Agatha Christie on the shelf in a library, realise that there’s more to the fiction than an impossible murder, but a comfort to people during uncertainty, in the aftermath of a war during a period of great change.
Sharad Patel, Junior School
I’m going to die. That’s what I’m thinking right now. The air raid is set off again, followed by the agile spitfires. Gunshots are firing above my head as I’m sprinting to the Morrison shelter as fast as I can. Whilst I pant I feel terrified of the V1 bombers. They scare me to death. I’ve been told that they keep flying until they run out of fuel. After that, KABOOM. You’ll never see daylight again. Mam told me that if you hear it coming, you should start to count the seconds. If it has been ten seconds, it’s missed you. You’re lucky. Alicia (my sister) is here now. We both cling to each other for comfort. Mam still isn’t here. I’m now concerned about her as she is usually the first here. All I can do is wait. As for my father. Well, he died at war. He was one of the unfortunate soldiers who died at Dunkirk. War has been raging for two long years. I have lost so many people close to me now, that I wouldn’t mind dying. Finally, mam is here. We all hug on to each other. We cherish these moments, as they could be our last. The gunshots still fire above our heads. Anxiously, we wait for the air raid siren. The dogfights would usually be over by now. Suddenly, I’m hearing a noise. It doesn’t sound like an air raid. Mam is talking. She tells me it’s a V1 bomber. I cling on to my family desperately as we count.
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Dhilan Mehta, Middle School
The 1st World War started in 1914, by the leaders of Germany and Austria- Hungary. Germany believed it was unfair that they had the smallest empire- a handful of territories in Africa, and other worthless islands. Whereas, Britain had Canada, South Africa (amongst many other major African countries), Australia, India, New Guinea and Jamaica, to name a few. Britain, France and Russia formed the Triple Entente Alliance. The reason why Russia got involved in the war was because of the Franco- Russian Alliance, which stated that if France or Russia was attacked, they would support the other country. In this case, France was attacked. When Russia entered the war, it suffered enormous casualties, and Russia’s resources became scarce as their sea routes were cut- off by the enemy. So, Russians had almost no food, no heat in most cases, and minimal money. Inevitably, this led to rioting, and huge protests to end the war, but the Tsar didn’t and Russia were still losing. People were dying, hungry and cold, this is what ultimately led to the revolution and the Tsar abdicating in 1917.
One reason why World War 1 (WW1) led to the outbreak of the March Revolution was because of the political impact of military failure. Aside from the Tsar unable to rule Russia effectively, as the war continued, the quality and successfulness of the Russian Empire’s Government and Army was called into question. The Tsar believed Russia’s poor performance in the war and were losing because he wasn’t commanding the Russian Empire’s Army. By commanding the army, he now took direct charge, so he had to take responsibility of all losses. For these reasons, now he could blame it on ‘bad generals’, and their incompetence. Whilst he was gone to the war, he left the Tsarina- his wife, and Rasputin- a monk from Siberia. The issues around this was that the Okhrana were chasing Rasputin around for strong sexual misconduct, which the Tsar allowed to pass, and the Tsarina was extremely influenced by him, so the decisions she made for the country, we can assume that Rasputin had a lot to do with them. Furthermore, there were problems with Tsarina Alexandra.
Alexandra was not very popular in Russia; she was reserved and awkward in public. More importantly, the Tsarina was actually a German Princess, and many were suspicious as to where her loyalties lay in the war situation. After the Germans seized control of the majority of West Russia, the Russian Government ministers and the public lost confidence in the Tsar and Tsarina’s Governance and reached the conclusion that Rasputin was too influential to the Tsarina and made bad decisions, on a home front. So, Felix Yusuport, the Tsarinas’ youngest son, and other family invited Rasputin to a party. The nobility decided he needed to die, so gave him cyanide cake, but this didn’t work, so he was shot, but this was too late. Now, the people didn’t follow orders from the top of the social hierarchy in Russia. Now, there was peasants protesting and were angry, about various factors of the war that impacted their day to day life, but peacefully. In this situation, an army would be deployed to keep control, but they refused to fire, as the real army had been shipped off to war and peasants were brought in to fire on fellow peasants. This obviously dd not happen, they refused to fire, and shot their officers. They were known as the Volinsky Regiment. This eventually led to the collapse of the Russian Government.
Another reason why WW1 led to the outbreak of the March Revolution was the economic dislocation caused by the war. From the start of the war, Russia’s economic problems and situation got progressively worse. In the Winter of 1917, all trains were directed to supply arms, not materials and goods for cities. Factories had no resources-vital raw materials from overseas could no longer reach Russia, this resulted in shortages of raw material and finished goods. So, with the little material the state had, they used it to make food, weapons and ammunition for the Russian Army, however the army still faced a major shortage. The underdeveloped railway system Russia had developed was taken over by the government for the war effort. Therefore, with no resources virtually, the factory workers of Petrograd couldn’t work, and subsequently earn no money. In this current situation, food prices rocketed, and extremely high inflation occurred, leading to deaths from starvation. In the Winter in Russia, in 1917, it was approximately averaging at -40 degrees Celsius and there were immense fuel shortages, or none at all, so people died from hypothermia. Consequently, rioting in St Petersburg broke out. Usually, as previously stated, above, in this climax, the army would be brought in to kill the rioters. However, the professional, highly- trained army had been all shipped off to the war, 15 million strong, so a new Volinsky Regiment was created, out of the peasantry, and were sent to kill rioters in St Petersburg. Without a plan devised, at all, they thought we’re shooting our own men, they’re fighting for our cause, so they instead shot their own officers. The Tsar tried to return immediately, but this new army stopped his train from coming in, and was forced to abdicate. They stopped obeying the Tsar, and the Russian Government had collapsed.
These were the two crucial reasons that the March Revolution occurred- the poor financial situation, the poor governance and performance of the state at war.
