September SeriesCAT: A series more than 50 years old

Welcome to SeriesCAT for September! This month, we're reading from series that began more than 50 years ago. It's your opportunity to go back to that vintage mystery series you've been working on, or perhaps a series of vintage fiction.

A series is more than 50 years old if the first book was published before 1973. Some examples:

* Hercule Poirot -- first book published in 1920, last book in 1975
* The Lord of the Rings -- published in 1954-55
* Dortmunder by Donald Westlake - first book published in 1970, last book published in 2009



Let everyone know what you're reading, here and on the wiki!

I may read The Veiled One by Ruth Rendell from the Inspector Wexford series, which started in 1964

I am thinking of something by Miss Read, my go-to books. Village Diary and Village School were first published in the 1950's.

I love vintage mysteries and I have set three aside for September:

: Pearls Before Swine by Margery Allingham - the 12th book in her Albert Campion series, this book was originally published in 1945

: Death At the President's Lodging by Michael Innes - the first book in his Inspector Appleby series, first published in 1936

: Postscript to Poison by Dorothy Bowers - the first book in her Inspector Dan Pardoe series, first published in 1938

I have more options than I thought I might.

The First Four Years / Laura Ingalls Wilder (which might also fit RandomKIT?)
The Lord God Made Them All / James Herriot
The Boy Who Followed Ripley / Patricia Highsmith

I have two series that I could keep going with - Miss Marple by Agatha Christie or Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis.

I'm going to be continuing with The Nursing Home Murders which is the 3rd book in the Inspector Allyn series by Ngaio Marsh.

I'll read the next book in the Master and Commander series by Patrick O'Brian. The series began in 1969 and the last was published 30 years later.

I keep re-reading The Bobbsey Twins and I will have all 8 that I have re-read for the last time!

>5 LibraryCin: that Herriot series is more than 50 years old?

I feel ancient.

I know I have some books that will fit, looking forward to joining this one!

>5 LibraryCin: It would definitely fit RandomKIT!

>10 fuzzi: I'm pretty sure, but I didn't double check. I guess I was thinking of the time period/setting. I will double check that...

ETA: Looks like the first one was published in 1972, so it (just barely) fits!

I've got a number of old Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books that have found their way onto my shelves, so I'm going to pick one of those up...

I'm planning to read Babes in the Wood by Ruth Rendell from the Inspector Wexford series that started in 1962.

Found one that is also good for two other challenges in September, triple play!


The Big Sky by A.B. Guthrie Jr

I would love to read more of the books about Laura Ingalls Wilder's family, beyond the original Little House books... does it count for this challenge if she didn't write the book, but it's considered part of the whole Little House series?

>16 PlatinumWarlock: I think it could count. We are usually flexible in the challenges, so make it work for you.

>16 PlatinumWarlock: >17 LadyoftheLodge: Yes, what Cheryl said about flexibility. And these are all on one LT series page, besides.

>16 PlatinumWarlock: I read the first couple Rose Years books by Roger Lea MacBride, which I enjoyed.

>14 VivienneR: Babes in the Wood by Ruth Rendell was a dud.

From experience, I know I should be wary about reading a Rendell mystery. Her characters are always so irritating. In this case even more so: the father of two missing children doesn't care a whit and considers their disappearance as an inconvenience. Wexford should have taken him in for questioning right away to give him a wake up call at the very least. After a meandering investigation I'm finished. This was wasted time for me. I kept hoping it would get better and it didn't. If you like Rendell's Wexford series, my advice is to skip this one.

I read Village Christmas by Miss Read. I liked the evocation of the Christmas spirit in the summer.

>16 PlatinumWarlock: Most of them are part of their own series anyway(The Martha Years, The Caroline Years, etc.), so I would count them as series books.

I just completed the first Inspector Appleby mystery by Michael Innes. Death at the President's Lodging was a complex mystery with a great academic atmosphere.

I revisited the Modesty Blaise comic strips with The Gabriel Set-Up containing the first three stories.

I've read Sad Cypress by Agatha Christie, a Hercule Poirot novel and Mrs. Pollifax and the Whirling Dervish by Dorothy Gilman. This installment is not 50 years old yet, but the first one in the series was published in 1966.

I downloaded The Man in the Queue by Josephine Tey. I also looked at some by Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham, and Agatha Christie. When I finish this one, I'll see how much time I have left in the month and see if I can fit another in. (I am not sure what all I have on hold besides this month's book for Benita's group read. (It won't come in this month. It's too long and the "queue" was too long.)

October is here:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/353667

I completed The Bobbsey Twins at School by Laura Lee Hope. It did not stand up as well with time as I had hoped.

Currently reading Hallowe'en Party by Agatha Christie, part of a series started in 1920.

Well, I was never able to find any of the Little House books in digital form at our library, so I started listening to When Worlds Collide by Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer, which is the first of a 3-book series and which I'm enjoying. It's VERY strange to read a book written in 1932 that talks about building a spaceship to go to another planet - the technology wasn't very advanced then! I've only encountered one female character who - surprisingly - has a towering intellect as well as all of the (oft-mentioned) favorable physical qualities one might expect in a book of that time, so that's nice to see - although much of her dialogue is super-cringy. I keep expecting the narrator to comment on her swooning or something.

COMPLETED Hallowe'en Party by Agatha Christie

I read Postscript to Poison by Dorothy Bowers which was originally published in 1938.

I have finished Death in a Tenured Position by Amanda Cross, part of the Kate Fansler series. Kate solved her first case in 1964.

Starting Death Before Bedtime by Edgar Box aka Gore Vidal, part of a series written in the 1950s when Gore Vidal couldn't get published under his own name

Read The King is Dead by Ellery Queen

COMPLETED Death Before Bedtime by Edgar Box aka Gore Vidal.

Currently reading the last in the trilogy, Death Likes It Hot.

COMPLETED Death Likes It Hot by Gore Vidal

I finished Georges Simenon's Night at the Crossroads in the original French. This is the 7th book in the Inspector Maigret series, which began in 1930, almost a century ago!

Just have to share: I pulled out an old Hardy Boys book to read last night. I'd been meaning to dig into some and see how they held up thirty-some years after I first devoured them, and this was a great excuse. I have NEVER in my life seen my husband do such a clear double-take lol.

I will say, I'm about two-thirds of the way through after last night's reading, and it's interesting to see how differently they read for me now. I wasn't sure I'd enjoy it, but I don't remember the mystery, and there's a nostalgic element that I really enjoyed sinking into. I'm surprised by how Scooby-Doo-ish it feels to me, though!

The First Four Years / Laura Ingalls Wilder
4 stars

This is the last in the Little House series, looking at the first four years of Laura and Almanzo’s marriage. They homesteaded during this time and tried to get a farm going, and they had a daughter, Rose.

This was published after Rose’s death. The book was an unfinished manuscript. I still really enjoyed it, even if it wasn’t as Laura would have published it if she’d ever taken time to finish it. There were still plenty of brilliant descriptions of things. During the four years, their farm (at least the crops) never did flourish, though they did well with their animals. The weather (as it often is with farming) was the culprit – hail, a tornado (or cyclone, as Laura called it), drought, fire. Also blizzards in winter factored into their lives, as it did with anyone on the prairies. I have a beautiful “full color collector’s edition”, which has very nice glossy colour illustrations.

I read Death in Ecstasy by Ngaio Marsh, part of the Inspector Adamsberg series.

Finished While the Clock Ticked, Hardy Boys #11.

>28 Tess_W: Those books haven't aged that well IMHO. My mother loved them. I didn't like them that well as a child, but they really don't read well today.

I have completed Pearls Before Swine by Margery Allingham, the 12th book in her Albert Campion series.