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Author

Anne Perry

72 fiction

Anne Perry (1938–2023), born Juliet Hulme, was a British author best known for historical crime fiction set in Victorian England. Her first major series follows police inspector Thomas Pitt and his socially well-connected wife Charlotte as they investigate murders involving London’s aristocracy, political institutions and poorer districts. Beginning with The Cater Street Hangman, the series combines conventional detective plots with examinations of class, gender, poverty and social hypocrisy. Perry later created the darker William Monk series, beginning with The Face of a Stranger, featuring an amnesiac investigator and Crimean War nurse Hester Latterly.

Most of Perry’s fiction is historical. In addition to the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt, William Monk and Daniel Pitt mysteries, she wrote five interconnected novels about a British family during the First World War, beginning with No Graves as Yet. Her Elena Standish series is set amid the political tensions of 1930s Europe, while The Sheen on the Silk moves much further back in time to the Byzantine Empire. Perry also produced a long sequence of Christmas historical mysteries, usually centred on secondary characters from her principal Victorian series. Her novels are particularly notable for using criminal investigations to explore moral responsibility, institutional injustice and the restrictions placed upon women in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century society.

Periods and events

Armistice and Aftermath of World War I1918–1923 CE Battle of the Somme1916 CE British Home Front during World War I1914–1918 CE July Crisis1914 Pre-war London1910–4 August 1914 CE Rise of Fascism1919–1939 CE Rise of Nazism1919–1933 CE Victorian London1837–1901 CE Western Front1914–1918 CE

Historical fiction

Historical fiction series by Anne Perry (5 series)

Daniel Pitt Mystery in Order

by Anne Perry 7 books 4.5(12,248)

The Daniel Pitt mysteries follow the barrister son of Charlotte and Thomas Pitt as he begins practice in London between 1910 and 1913. Working with fellow lawyer Toby Kitteridge and forensic scientist Miriam fford Croft, Daniel defends clients facing the gallows and investigates evidence that reaches beyond the…

William Monk in Order

by Anne Perry 23 books 4.4(34,827)

The William Monk series follows a Victorian investigator who awakens after an accident without memory of his identity or previous conduct. Assisted by Crimean War nurse Hester Latterly and barrister Oliver Rathbone, Monk reconstructs his past while solving cases that expose violence within wealthy households, hospitals, courts, docks…

Elena Standish in Order

by Anne Perry 5 books 4.4(6,468)

The Elena Standish series follows a British photographer recruited into intelligence work as fascism and Nazism spread across Europe in the 1930s. Elena’s assignments take her through Italy, Germany, Austria, the United States and the English country-house world, where photographs, diplomatic contacts and family relationships become sources of…

The Charlotte and Thomas Pitt Novels in Order

by Anne Perry 32 books 4.3(47,868)

The Charlotte and Thomas Pitt novels begin in 1881, when Inspector Thomas Pitt investigates murders in the respectable Cater Street household of Charlotte Ellison. Their marriage develops alongside thirty-two cases that lead Pitt from ordinary police work into Special Branch and bring Charlotte’s knowledge of upper-class society into…

World War I in Order

by Anne Perry 5 books 2.5(25)

Anne Perry’s World War I sequence follows the Reavley family from the summer of 1914 to the armistice of 1918. Joseph serves as an army chaplain on the Western Front, Judith becomes an ambulance driver, Matthew works in British intelligence and Hannah experiences the war through naval service…

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