Tory Historian's (long) blog: Murder and Mayhem in the British Library

The Folio Society Gallery in the British Library is an odd bit of space between the main staircase and the coffee bar. At present and for another week it is occupied by a slightly eccentric but delightful exhibition, called Murder in the Library: An A- Z of Crime Fiction. Tory Historian visited it a couple of times and took copious notes.

The biggest criticism is that too many of the exhibits are modern and unexciting paperbacks even though the British Library must have original copies of first editions of all crime books, which are of greater interest.

The entrance to the exhibition (just above the escalator) has a quotation from Monsignor Knox and his famous Decalogue, which laid down all the rules that good detective writers (especially Agatha Christie) proceeded to break.

The rest of this long posting is on the secondary blog (for long postings)