Elementary, my dear Worsley

WHEN television historian and curator of the Royal palaces Dr Lucy Worsley tells people of her passion for murder she often meets with puzzled expressions.

“I have to put a caveat on it,” she laughs.

“I’m attracted to detective stories. What a detective does is what I do – they work from tiny fragments of evidence to build a fuller picture.”

Worsley’s attraction dates back to reading about American girl sleuth Nancy Drew as a youngster.

But in the talk she is bringing to Worthing, which takes its title from her 2013 book, she is focusing on the golden age of the British murder mystery.

The time period encompasses the likes of Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, mistress of suspense Agatha Christie and Worsley’s own personal favourite Dorothy L Sayers – creator of Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane.

The rise of detective fiction could be linked to changes in society, as people moved out of close-knit villages into urban environments during the Industrial Revolution.

“In an 18th century village your fears would have been dying of plague, war or famine,” says Worsley.

“When people move to the towns in the 19th century they are safer and cleaner, it’s easier to get food. People have time and space to think about other ways of dying – like being murdered by the creepy man who lives next door.”

A lack of knowledge about the people who lived around you may have contributed to the detection side of the story, assisted by the creation of the Metropolitan Police and novelists like Charles Dickens writing about crime, fear, anxiety and neuroses.

“In an 18th-century village everyone knew each other,” she says.

“The main way of solving crime then was to offer a reward, as everyone knew who the likely suspects were.”

The rise of a literate population also fuelled the love of a good murder – with cheap newspapers printing the latest bloodthirsty tales.

“In Victorian times you would have judged a murder by how gory it was,” says Worsley.

“There is a theory that the detective story presenting a solution at the end became more popular after public hanging stopped in the 1850s.

“They used to be a massive spectacle, but when they moved behind prison walls there was a hunger for another type of closure.”

She admits detective stories, and their cousins, the novels of sensation such as Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone, are still regarded as something of a guilty pleasure. They are not generally found on the reading lists of English literature degrees.

“They are massively important,” she says.

“A huge proportion of books being sold and read are crime novels. I’m looking at the history of what people actually read.”

Britain led the way in crime fiction – being the originators of the genre.

“Other countries have their own detective fiction,” she says.

“Developing countries often don’t. As there can be a real chance of getting killed in an act of violence there’s no reason to read about it.

“When you look at Swedish society though they have stable, liberal lives, but they are creating these terrible crimes in their fiction!

“The talk isn’t just a history of murder, or a history of crime – it’s a history of justice, gender and literature, and a history of literacy as people learned to read.”

Worsley’s own survey ends after the Second World War, when the black and white of detective fiction wasn’t quite as obvious.

“The old certainties were destroyed,” she says. “There was much more ambivalence about what was right or wrong.”

As well as discussing her book, which was made into a three-part TV series in 2014, Worsley will be taking questions after the hour-long talk – ranging from the history of the Royal palaces to her distinctive haircut.

Questions are bound to arise about Dancing Cheek To Cheek the November series which saw her team up with Len Goodman to investigate the history of dance – and try her hand at the minuet, the polka and the Charleston.

She says the series arose out of an agreement Worsley made with her husband three years ago.

“He made me sign a pre-nuptial contract saying I would never appear on Strictly Come Dancing,” she says.

“I would quite like to have done the show, so the series was how I got around it.”

She’s still taking dancing lessons, although she admits she will never be a professional.

“You’ve either got it or you haven’t,” she says. “Basically I haven’t.”

She sees her increasing television profile as part of her job with Royal palaces.

“My first job is as a particular type of historian – a public historian,” she says as she prepares for Hampton Court Palace’s extensive 500th anniversary celebrations.

“I’m writing history for people who aren’t academics. The television programmes are another way of doing that – it’s not too dissimilar from giving a guided tour around Hampton Court Palace.

“I want to give a taste of the history – if people like it they will progress to reading a book, doing a degree, or even taking a job at the Royal Palaces!”

Essential info: Starts 7.30pm, tickets £15.50. Call 01903 206206.