Mysteries entering the public domain.

Mysteries that have entered the public domain and are on the online Project Gutenberg:

A.E.W. Mason. NYPL

  •  As a Thief in the Night  by R. Austin Freeman (a Dr. Thorndyke mystery). "One of the most satisfactory detective stories we have read."—Walter R. Brooks, The Outlook

  • Ashenden; or the British Agent by Somerset Maugham (based on Maugham's experiences in World War I). "An urbane series of stories dealing with the diplomatic side of Secret Service work"—Saturday Review

  • Behind That Curtain by Earl Derr Biggers (a Charlie Chan mystery). "Excellent"—Gilbert Seldes, Saturday Review (pb edition here)

  • The Footsteps at the Lock by Father (later Msgr.) Ronald Knox (a Miles Bredon mystery). "breezy characterization and satirical humour"—The Spectator (pb edition here)

 • Murder in the Maze by J.J. Connington. "[T]he usual false clues are skillfully suggested, and the reading public may well be surprised and amused to the end."—The English Review (pb edition here)

 • The Prisoner in the Opal by A.E.W. Mason (an Inspector Hanaud mystery). "another intriguing story of mystery and thrilling adventure"—Wanganui Chronicle (Wellington, Australia; pb edition here)

 • The Velvet Hand: New Madame Storey Mysteries by Hulbert Footner. "thoughtfully and ingeniously constructed"—New York Times

Woodrow Wilson, mystery fan.

Woodrow Wilson, 28th president of the United States, was quite the mystery fan. "I read detective stories to forget," he wrote to Nancy Saunders Toy in December 1914, "as a man would get drunk!" He added in Eugene C. Brooks's Woodrow Wilson as President (1916), “There are blessed intervals when I forget by one means or another that I am President of the United States. One means by which I forget is to get a rattling good detective story, get after some imaginary offender and chase him all over…” (530).

Authors and works mentioned by scholars as Wilson favorites include Joseph Smith Fletcher, Mary Roberts Rinehart, and E. Phillips Oppenheim's The Great Impersonation (1920). Wrote Christopher Morley in The Ironing Board (1949), “I remember Mr. Wilson, after leaving the White House, telling me he couldn’t find enough really readable detective stories. So I sent him my precious Fugitive Sleuth [by Hulbert Footner]” (168).