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SYMONS’ 100 BEST CRIME STORIES
Julian Symons was awarded the British Crime Writer's Association Cartier Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement, named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America, served as President of the Detection Club in London and was a distinguished critic of the mystery genre. In 1957-58, Julian Symons selected the 100 Best Crime Stories for the London Sunday Times. That list follows.
| 1794 | William Godwin | Caleb Williams |
| 1845 | Edgar Allan Poe | Tales of Mystery and Imagination |
| 1860 | Wilkie Collins | The Woman in White |
| 1864 | Sheridan Le Fanu | Uncle Silas |
| 1868 | Wilkie Collins | The Moonstone |
| 1870 | Charles Dickens | The Mystery of Edwin Drood |
| 1882 | Robert Louis Stevenson | The New Arabian Nights |
| 1886 | Fyodor Dostoevsky | Crime and Punishment |
| 1887 | Emile Gaboriau | The Mystery of Orcival |
| 1887 | Fergus Hume | The Mystery of a Hansom Cab |
| 1894 | Arthur Conan Doyle | The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes |
| 1895 | Arthur Machen | The Three Impostors |
| 1899 | E. W. Hornung | Raffles |
| 1902 | Arthur Conan Doyle | The Hound of the Baskervilles |
| 1907 | Jacques Futrelle | The Thinking Machine |
| 1907 | Maurice Leblanc | The Seven of Hearts |
| 1909 | Gaston Leroux | The Mystery of the Yellow Room |
| 1909 | Baroness Orczy | The Old Man in the Corner |
| 1910 | A. E. W. Mason | At the Villa Rose |
| 1911 | G. K. Chesterton | The Innocence of Father Brown |
| 1912 | R. Austin Freeman | The Singing Bone |
| 1913 | E. C. Bentley | Trent’s Last Case |
| 1914 | Ernest Bramah | Max Carrados |
| 1915 | John Buchan | The Thirty-Nine Steps |
| 1920 | Sapper | Bull-Dog Drummond |
| 1922 | Edgar Wallace | The Crimson Circle |
| 1922 | A. A. Milne | The Red House Mystery |
| 1922 | Freeman Wills Crofts | The Pit-Prop Syndicate |
| 1924 | A. E. W. Mason | The House of the Arrow |
| 1926 | Agatha Christie | The Murder of Roger Ackroyd |
| 1926 | C. S. Forester | Payment Deferred |
| 1928 | S. S. Van Dine | The Greene Murder Case |
| 1928 | Frances Noyes Hart | The Bellamy Trial |
| 1928 | W. Somerset Maugham | Ashenden |
| 1929 | Anthony Berkeley | The Poisoned Chocolates Case |
| 1929 | H. C. Bailey | Mr. Fortune Speaking |
| 1931 | Thomas Burke | The Pleasantries of Old Quong |
| 1931 | Dashiell Hammett | The Glass Key |
| 1931 | William Faulkner | Sanctuary |
| 1931 | Francis Iles | Malice Aforethought |
| 1931 | Hugh Walpole | Above the Dark Circus |
| 1932 | Ellery Queen | The Greek Coffin Mystery |
| 1933 | Dorothy L. Sayers | Murder Must Advertise |
| 1933 | Ethel Lina White | The Wheel Spins |
| 1934 | Margery Allingham | Death of a Ghost |
| 1934 | James M. Cain | The Postman Always Rings Twice |
| 1934 | F. Tennyson Jesse | A Pin to See the Peep-Show |
| 1934 | Rex Stout | Fer-de-Lance |
| 1935 | Ellery Queen | The Adventures of Ellery Queen |
| 1935 | Ernest Raymond | We, the Accused |
| 1935 | Dorothy L. Sayers | Gaudy Night |
| 1935 | John Dickson Carr | The Hollow Man |
| 1936 | Erle Stanley Gardner | The Case of the Sleepwalker’s Niece |
| 1936 | Graham Greene | A Gun For Sale |
| 1937 | Michael Innes | Hamlet, Revenged! |
| 1937 | Jonathan Latimer | The Lady in the Morgue |
| 1938 | Daphne du Maurier | Rebecca |
| 1938 | Philip Mac Donald | The Nursemaid Who Disappeared (Warrant for X) |
| 1939 | Eric Ambler | The Mask of Demetrios |
| 1939 | Geoffrey Household | Rogue Male |
| 1939 | Ngaio Marsh | Overture to Death |
| 1940 | Raymonmd Postgate | Verdict of Twelve |
| 1941 | Patrick Hamilton | Hangover Square |
| 1941 | John Mair | Never Come Back |
| 1942 | Cyril Hare | Tragedy at Law |
| 1943 | Raymond Chandler | The High Window |
| 1943 | Georges Simenon | The Lodger |
| 1944 | Vera Caspary | Laura |
| 1945 | Agatha Christie | Death Comes as the End |
| 1945 | William Irish | Phantom Lady |
| 1946 | Edmund Crispin | The Moving Toyshop |
| 1946 | Helen Eustis | The Horizontal Man |
| 1947 | Kenneth Fearing | The Big Clock |
| 1947 | Edgar Lustgarten | A Case to Answer or One More Unfortunate |
| 1948 | John Franklin Bardin | Devil Take the Blue-Tail Fly |
| 1948 | Roy Fuller | With My Little Eye |
| 1949 | Roy Vickers | The Department of Dead Ends |
| 1950 | Charlotte Armstrong | Mischief |
| 1950 | Christianna Brand | Cat and Mouse |
| 1950 | W. R. Burnett | The Asphalt Jungle |
| 1950 | Michael Gilbert | Smallbone Deceased |
| 1951 | Victor Canning | Venetian Bird |
| 1951 | Georges Simenon | Maigret in Montmartre |
| 1951 | Josephine Tey | The Daughter of Time |
| 1952 | John Bingham | My Name is Michael Sibley |
| 1952 | Edward Grierson | Reputation for a Song |
| 1953 | Raymond Chandler | The Long Goodbye |
| 1953 | John Ross Macdonald | The Ivory Grin |
| 1953 | Hillary Waugh | Last Seen Wearing… |
| 1954 | Ira Levin | A Kiss Before Dying |
| 1955 | Margot Bennett | The Man Who Didn’t Fly |
| 1955 | Michael Innes | The Man From the Sea |
| 1955 | Margaret Millar | A Beast in View |
| 1955 | Patrick Quentin | The Man With Two Wives |
| 1956 | Nicholas Blake | A Tangled Web |
| 1956 | Patricia Highsmith | The Blunderer |
| 1956 | Shelley Smith | The Lord Have Mercy |
| 1957 | Stanley Ellin | Mystery Stories |
| 1957 | Ian Fleming | From Russia With Love |
| 1957 | Meyer Levin | Compulsion |
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