Bleak House is also in some ways considered the precursor to the detective novel.

I knew there was a Dickens that was relevant but I couldn't come up with it. Possibly because I haven't read it.

I really don't like Miss Marple (the character). Some of her mysteries are okay, but they aren't my favorites.

Okay, I lied. I started thinking about my Top Ten and two of them are Miss Marple mysteries.

Top Ten Agatha Christies:
A Murder is Announced
The A.B.C. Murders
And Then There Were None
The Man in the Brown Suit (I realize this is completely irrational but there it is)
Murder at Hazelmoor
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Murder on the Orient Express
N or M? (I love Tommy and Tuppence)
What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw!
Why Didn't They Ask Evans?

I want to love Tommy and Tuppence, but the only one I really like is...um...oh, crap, it's some quote from Macbeth. "Something Wicked This Way Comes", I think.

By the Pricking of My Thumbs

ETA: That's the one where she brings them out of retirement because so many people liked them. I wouldn't have wanted more books with them, but I liked the early spy stuff.

Close! Same line!

Also read a Harley Quin short story or two. As far as I know Agatha's only foray into the supernatural, and genuinely chilling. The non-supernatural character Mr Satterthwaite is sort of scary/pathetic as well if you think about him too much.

I really think Christie is underrated; she did so much innovative and experimental stuff.

DH doesn't read a lot of pop culture stuff, and he never really did not even as a kid. And so not a mystery reader. his ' trash' reading is scifi that takes a lot of concentration. But he like harry potter and a few other authors that write really good stories , but that in no way shape or form could anyone consider high literature. and he does agree with me about 'lit fic' - a lot of it has a very perfectible and mundane plot.

A lot of PhD candidates are not readers first. They are critics. I am glad that I did not go to my first choice college ( yours, David) . I think I really found my relationship to books where I went. I like to know where books stand in their historic context. Unless I am reading a trashy romance -- then it is just fun

And I now have a sudden urge to reread Christie

We read at least one Sherlock Holmes story in 8th grade English, I think as an aside to Poe's Dupin stories.

I can see where mysteries wouldn't turn up much at college/university because [insert academic sneering at pulp stories here], but if you're going to talk about literature you need some familiarity with the development of various genres, and... how do you leave out Poe?

Plus, isn't Paul Auster beloved by the academic set? Or has that ship sailed? Or is it localized to NY?

I do remember a junior in one of my college lit classes who was bummmed about finally having to read Shakespeare. And I thought "Why are you an English major if you don't want to read Shakespeare?" but... perhaps this is hypocritical of me since I've never read Austen and apparently that's fairly outrageous.