Dorothy B. Hughes Anthologies books in order

Dorothy B. Hughes contributed to and helped assemble several mystery anthologies in the later decades of her career, including collections devoted to presidential mysteries and new Sherlock Holmes adventures. These volumes reflect her standing as a senior figure in American crime fiction and her long engagement with the genre as both editor and critic.
Series · Crime Fiction · Classic Mystery · Short Fiction · Anthology

Reading order

# Title Published Author Buy on Amazon
1 Fifty Best Mysteries 1993 Dorothy B. Hughes Buy
2 The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes 1999 Dorothy B. Hughes Buy
3 Mr. President, Private Eye 2004 Dorothy B. Hughes Buy

Hughes’s anthologies represent the institutional phase of her career, when she had moved from writing novels to helping shape how the genre understood itself. Her decades as a critic — reviewing mysteries for newspapers from the 1940s through the 1970s — made her one of the most widely read people in American crime fiction, and that background informed her editorial work.

Fifty Best Mysteries (1993) appeared in the year of her death and reflects a lifetime of reading in the genre. The Sherlock Holmes and presidential mystery anthologies published afterward were drawn from projects she had contributed to earlier. They are a side note to her main body of fiction and criticism but belong to the same life of total engagement with the mystery form.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many books are in the Dorothy B. Hughes Anthologies series?

There are three books in the Dorothy B. Hughes Anthologies series, published between 1993 and 2004.

What is the first book in the Dorothy B. Hughes Anthologies series?

The first book in the Dorothy B. Hughes Anthologies series is Fifty Best Mysteries, published in 1993.

What anthologies did Dorothy B. Hughes work on?

The three volumes span the 1990s and early 2000s. Fifty Best Mysteries (1993) is a selection reflecting her four decades of critical reading in the genre. The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1999) collects new pastiches featuring Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective by various authors. Mr. President, Private Eye (2004) gathers mystery stories with US presidents as characters. Hughes died in 1993, so the later volumes were posthumous publications drawing on work she had contributed to or helped assemble earlier.

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