[BearMountainBooks]

1901-1910 Anne of Green Gables
1921 -1930 - The first Nancy Drew was published. (Author was various, but the books were published under Carolynn Keene). The Secret of the Clock is book one.
1941-1950 Het Achterhuis in 1947 (First publication of The Diary of Anne Frank - Netherlands). I read the English version, which came out later--but I didn't know whether to list the first published or the one closest to what I read?



1971-80 - Crocodile on the Sandbank - Elizabeth Peters. I actually think Peters body of work represents "some of the greatest" of a certain era, but this first book in the Amelia Peabody series was published in 1975 so I shall nominate it in that category. While she was far from the first cozy writer, she was a forerunner in historical cozies with the Amelia Peabody series (Egypt specifically although other locals are covered in some of the books). She was also a forerunner in her use of humor. While I probably actually enjoyed her Vicky Bliss series more for the humor, that style is evident in much of her work (excluding some of the Barbara Michaels Gothic works).

There are probably many other better known books/authors that had an impact on other genres (Tolkien, Donaldson, etc) but I think Peters had an incredible impact on the mystery writing world partially because she didn't stay in one sub-genre (Gothic/horror, humor, historical, cozy) and also because she was prolific and so very good at story telling and characterization. She also wrote from a time when female authors were not taken as seriously as their male counterparts. Her very education in Egyptology and other areas was rare, yet she turned it into a very long-running and entertaining series. The style in which she wrote opened up a whole new freedom for authors to explore the idea of humor in mysteries from coy, silliness, outrageous -- all the way through to and including dry wit.

For those who don't read mysteries, or cozies specifically, her impact was probably negligible, but for those of us who do, well, what a wonderful treat to have discovered and read along as her style morphed and as her characters grew and changed.