#inspector morse

[stupendousmagazinetale]

Jeremy brett, David suchet, Peter davison and John thaw

[crafterreader]

I'm working on putting together a timeline of fictional British detectives and when they were active. This is what I have so far:

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Brother Cadfael - 1130's-1140's

Matthew Shardlake - 1530's-1540's

Sherlock Holmes (original ACD stories) - 1880's-1920's

Amelia Peabody - 1880's-1920's (active in both Britain and Egypt)

Father Brown (book & 1970's show version) - 1910's-1930's

Phryne Fisher - 1920's (active in Australia, but with strong connections to Britain)

Hercule Poirot - most active 1920's-1940's, but continues into the 1970's

Lord Peter Wimsey - 1920's-1930's

Miss Marple - 1930's-1970's

Christopher Foyle - 1940's

Father Brown (modern TV version) - 1950's

Grantchester TV series, multiple "detectives" - 1950's-1960's

Sister Boniface - 1960's

Inspector Morse - 1960's-1970's; 1980's-2000

Tom Barnaby - 1990's-2000's

Jane Tennison - 1990's

DI Jack Frost - 1990's

Rosemary Boxer & Laura Thyme - 2000's

Robbie Lewis - 2000's-2010's

Sherlock Holmes (modern BBC series) - 2010's

John Barnaby - 2010's-present

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I'm sure there are zillions of others, from book series, TV shows and movies. These are just the ones I could think of and could remember roughly when they were active without needing to look it up, supplemented with ones recommended to me by other folks.

I'd love to get suggestions to add to the list. Reasonably well known detectives that I forgot about and better dates for the ones I remembered are all welcome. I'd especially like to fill in the large gaps before Sherlock Holmes.

I'm thinking of this as something that might be useful for folks writing fic in any of these universes, and especially for folks doing crossovers, but mostly I'm doing it because it's fun. 😁

[patrice-bergerons]

There is something so endearing about morseverse to me, because on one hand, yes, so much of morseverse is very silly, but at the same time it is so unapologetically high brow, too. It's filled with opera and poetry and art, from episode titles to murder investigation plots to the characters themselves who are always quoting bits of Shakespeare and Housman and John Donne to one another. And it is both so earnest and refreshing when most other popular media is slop that desires only to be consumed passively and burn down as many synapses as possible with how mindless it is. I discovered new favourite poems and paintings thru these generations of Oxford detectives running after fictional murderers, and there are not that many shows, silly or otherwise, that you can say the same about, you know?

[eliszelis]

I'm sorry, where the HECK has this show been my whole life?

[jessiedragonda]

Some bits I liked from the morse novels

[sireniine]

hes so pretty i wanna eat him

[wildwildtarget]

KEVIN WHATELY as ROBBIE LEWIS

[no-where-new-hero]

every girl (gn) needs an eccentric detective to be feral about and make their whole personality. the weirder habits they have, the better