John Dickson Carr is best known as the master of the impossible crime novel, penning multiple titles that are held among the greatest of that sub-genre of crime fiction. He was a prolific writer, turning out four novels in a year at his peak – an enormous achievement, particularly given how well regarded those titles are.
I am no expert on Carr having only discovered his work since starting this blog and reviewed a tiny fraction of his output but I have appreciated the guidance of some of my blogging friends who are much better read in his work, particularly JJ at The Invisible Event.
Henri Bencolin
It Walks By Night (1930)
Castle Skull (1931)
The Lost Gallows (1931)
The Waxworks Murder/The Corpse in the Waxworks (1932)
The Four False Weapons (1937)
Dr. Gideon Fell
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| 1932 Hag’s Nook | 1933 The Mad Hatter Mystery | 1934 The Eight of Swords |
| 1934 The Blind Barber | 1935 Death-Watch | 1935 The Three Coffins / The Hollow Man |
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| 1936 The Arabian Nights Murder | 1938 The Crooked Hinge | 1938 To Wake the Dead |
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| 1939 The Black Spectacles / The Problem of the Green Capsule | 1939 The Problem of the Wire Cage | 1940 The Man Who Could Not Shudder |
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| 1941 The Case of the Constant Suicides | 1942 Death Turns the Tables | 1944 Till Death Do Us Part |
| 1946 He Who Whispers | 1947 The Sleeping Sphinx | 1949 Below Suspicion |
| 1958 The Dead Man’s Knock | 1960 In Spite of Thunder | 1965 The House at Satan’s Elbow |
| 1966 Panic in Box C | 1967 Dark of the Moon |
Sir Henry Merrivale (As Carter Dickson)
| 1934 The Plague Court Murders | 1934 The White Priory Murders | 1935 The Red Widow Murders |
| 1935 The Unicorn Murders | 1936 The Magic Lantern Murders / The Punch and Judy Murders | 1937 The Peacock Feather Murders / The Ten Teacups |
| 1938 The Judas Window / The Crossbow Murder | 1938 Death in Five Boxes | 1939 The Reader is Warned |
| 1940 And So To Murder | 1940 Nine and Death Makes Ten /Murder in the Submarine Zone | 1941 Seeing is Believing / Cross of Murder |
| 1942 The Gilded Man / Death and the Gilded Man | 1943 She Died a Lady | 1944 He Wouldn’t Kill Patience |
| 1945 The Curse of the Bronze Lamp / Lord of the Sorcerers | 1946 My Late Wives | 1948 The Skeleton in the Clock |
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| 1949 A Graveyard to Let | 1950 Night at the Mocking Widow | 1952 Behind the Crimson Blind |
| 1953 The Cavalier’s Cup | 1991 Merrivale, March and Murder |
Non-Series Works as John Dickson Carr
| 1932 Poison in Jest | 1936 The Murder of Sir Edmund Godfrey | 1937 The Burning Court |
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| 1942 The Emperor’s Snuff-Box | 1950 The Bride of Newgate | 1951 The Devil in Velvet |
| 1952 The Nine Wrong Answers | 1955 Captain Cut-Throat | 1956 Patrick Butler for the Defense |
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| 1957 Fire, Burn! | 1959 The Scandal at High Chimneys | 1961 The Witch of Low Tide |
| 1962 The Demoniacs | 1964 Most Secret | 1968 Papa La-Bas |
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| 1969 The Ghosts’ High Noon | 1971 Deadly Hall | 1972 The Hungry Goblin |
The Island of Coffins, a collection of all of the radio scripts written for his mystery anthology show, Cabin B-13 (1948).
Non-Series Works as Carter Dickson
The Bowstring Murders (1933) – written originally as Carr Dickson
Drop to His Death/Fatal Descent (1939) (with John Rhode)
The Department of Queer Complaints (1940)
Fear Is the Same (1956)
Author portrait in header image by Howard Coster. © National Portrait Gallery, London. Used under Creative Commons 3.0 licence. This photograph has been slightly cropped.
Mysteries Ahoy! 