Only Murders in the Library
This lecture will provide a brief history and visual tour of the Bancroft Library’s California Detective Fiction Collection, which was established to collect mystery, crime, and detective novels set in California. Highlights of the collection include rare books and pulp magazines, authors’ archives, and ephemera. Research conducted in the collection has led to several forgotten California writers being brought back to life through new editions of their books and, in a surprising plot twist, has even led to investigation of actual crimes.
Speaker:
Randal Brandt joined The Bancroft Library in 2001 as head of cataloging and is a recognized national authority on the bibliographic description of rare materials. Since 2013, he has also served as the inaugural curator of the California Detective Fiction Collection, helping Bancroft expand its collecting scope into the arena of genre literature and earning him the moniker of “UC Berkeley’s Crime Librarian.” He is a member of the Northern California chapter of Mystery Writers of America and has served as a literary advisor to the Bay Area Book Festival.