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Welcome to this episode of Cozy Mystery’s History, exploring the history of the term “cozy mystery” and celebrating the life and writings of author Lilian Jackson Braun on this, June twentieth, the anniversary of her birthday. I’m Donald Jay.

I’d like to start by introducing Mystery’s History to my new fans and followers. For the purposes of this series, I don’t claim to be an expert on the history of the mystery genre. Instead, I’m writing these posts from the perspective of a student. Exploring the stories behind the stories often uncovers facts about the mysteries we all know and love, as well as their authors, that I’ve never encountered before, and I assume my fellow mystery lovers will find fun and interesting. Mystery’s History is where I share those discoveries for your enjoyment. This series is about sharing my learning journey with you as I go along. As with any learning experience, try as I might, I may not always get it right, or there may still be gaps in my knowledge. So, please feel free to contribute any information you have to the conversation through your comments. All I ask is that you be kind, and if I get something horribly wrong, please DM me so I can correct it without feeling so embarrassed.

Now back to Cozy Mystery’s History and Lilian Jackson Braun.

This rabbit trail began when I became curious and asked my search engine, “Who coined the term ‘cozy mystery’?” Although no sources could identify an individual who first used the phrase, several indicated that the term evolved over time in the late twentieth century to describe the writings of a group of authors reviving the elements and qualities that readers had embraced during Mystery’s Golden Age.

At this point, a bit of background is needed. We all know that the Golden Age of Mystery, also referred to as the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, the Golden Age of Crime, or the Golden Age of Mystery Writing, is an era of classic mystery literature that predominantly spanned the 1920s and 1930s. The writing from that era is characterized by downplaying the violence associated with criminal acts, usually but not always a murder, in favor of the intellectual puzzle of figuring out whodunnit. The stories featured impossible crimes, red herrings, clues in plain sight for the reader to discern, and a grand reveal by an amateur sleuth. These tales focused on logic, deduction, and plot twists that engaged the reader in the role of the amateur detective.

Learning that today’s cozies evolved from mystery writers who embraced these qualities raises several questions. If the term “cozy mystery” developed to describe mysteries that revived the values of the Golden Age, who were these transitional authors, and how did they influence today’s modern cozies? Additionally, why was a revival necessary? What happened in between?

My quest for transitional authors of cozy mysteries led me to Lilian Jackson Braun, the author of The Cat Who mysteries.

Braun wrote her first mystery, The Cat Who Could Read Backwards, during the waning edge of the Golden Age in 1966, followed by The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern in 1967 and The Cat Who Turned On and Off in 1968. Then she simply stopped writing The Cat Who and vanished from the genre as mysteriously as one of her plots, only to reemerge on the scene eighteen years later with The Cat Who Saw Red in 1986. Where did she go? What happened after 1986?

The answer reads like the history of cozy mysteries.

One source reports that Braun stopped writing The Cat Who mysteries because of intense pressure to add more gore and violence to her material. When asked about her absence from writing mysteries, one source reports Ms. Braun explaining it this way, “By the time I had written the fourth (The Cat Who novels), tastes in mysteries had changed. They wanted sex and violence, not kitty-cat stories. Gore was not my style, so I just forgot about The Cat Who.”

Americans’ taste for mysteries was evidently changing in 1968 as the Golden Age of Mystery Writing was being consumed by the murky shadow of the “hard-boiled era.”

The hard-boiled era of mystery writing began in the 1920s, gained popularity during the 1930s, and peaked in America in the 1940s and 1950s. Its authors relied on gritty realism, on-screen violence, and an abrupt, often sarcastic tone. The detectives were hardened by a world of brazen crime, graphic violence, and sexual immorality. Authors like Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Mickey Spillane offered a starkly contrasting experience for mystery readers compared to the civilized English whodunnits of the Golden Age.

Now, it appears that the desire for the style and qualities of Golden Age mysteries did not completely vanish during the hard-boiled era. For example, Agatha Christie, recognized as a key figure in the Golden Age of Mystery Writing, is also seen as the “mother of cozy mysteries.” She wrote her first mystery, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, in 1916 and published it in 1920. Christie continued to write throughout her life, finishing her last novel, Postern of Fate, 53 years later in 1973, well into the hard-boiled era. Christie earned the title of “mother of cozy mysteries” as a transitional author, challenging mystery readers using the Golden Age aesthetic through both the Golden Age and hard-boiled era, and inspiring others to return to the values of the Golden Age through today’s modern-day cozies.

So, when did the term “cozy mystery” become popular? Though Braun herself referred to her works as “classic mysteries,” not cozies, the answer lies in one last outstanding question. What happened to Lilian Jackson Braun after 1986?

In 1986, eighteen years after writing The Cat Who Turned On and Off, after retiring from being the Good Living Editor of the Detroit Free Press, and with the encouragement of her husband, Braun revived The Cat Who mysteries with The Cat Who Saw Red. Berkley Publishing Group published it and republished the first three books in the series. The result? The return of The Cat Who was such a success that Braun went on to handwrite and type herself twenty-five more The Cat Who mysteries from 1987 to 2007, making 29 in all. The values of the Golden Age of Mysteries still held a special place in the hearts of American readers, and the term “cozy mystery” evolved to describe this emerging sub-genre.

Sadly, Braun never finished The Cat Who Smelled Smoke, the last of her The Cat Who mysteries. She died of a lung infection on June 4, 2011.

The Mystery Writers of America has established the Lilian Jackson Braun Award in her honor, which is awarded each year to the best contemporary mystery book set in a modern-day setting.

Finally, our own DC, Dickens Station’s community cat, who graciously allows my wife and me to reside in her abode, would never forgive me if I paid tribute to Lilian Jackson Braun and did not mention Koko and Yum Yum. KoKo, short for Kao K’o-Kung, and Yum Yum are the Siamese cats belonging to Jim Qwilleran (spelled with a ‘w’), a newspaperman who relies on their natural cat-like abilities to figure out whodunnit, just like in the Golden Age of Mystery.

If you haven’t tried any of The Cat Who mysteries, you’re missing out on a treat.

For Mystery’s History. Until next time. I’m Donald Jay.