Joseph Jefferson Farjeon books

Anthologies

Ben The Tramp Reading Order

British Library Crime Classics Reading Order

Standalone Novels

Joseph Jefferson Farjeon was a remarkably prolific crime fiction writer whose career stretched across several decades of the early-to-mid twentieth century. His best-known creation is Ben the Tramp, a recurring character who appeared in seven novels from No. 17 (1926) through Number Nineteen (1952). Mystery in White, Seven Dead, and Thirteen Guests are among the standalone titles that have attracted renewed attention in recent years.

Farjeon’s work appears extensively in the British Library Crime Classics series, a reprint program that has brought dozens of Golden Age mysteries back into print since 2015. His novels sit alongside titles by other authors from the same era in themed anthologies covering everything from railway murders to Christmas mysteries to sporting crimes. The standalone novels section of his catalog is enormous, with titles spanning the 1920s through the 1950s and covering mysteries set in houses, on moors, underground, and abroad. Many of these books went out of print for decades before finding new audiences through the British Library reprints and digital editions.