i Pandora Women Crime Writers<br > Series Editors: Rosalind Coward and Linda Semple<br > In introducing the Pandora Women Crime Writers series we<br > have two aims: to reprint the best of women crime writers<br > who have disappeared from print and to introduce a new<br > generation of women crime writers to all devotees of the<br > genre. We also hope to seduce new readers to the pleasures<br > of detective fiction.<br > Women have used the tradition of crime writing inventively<br > since the end of the last century. Indeed， in many periods<br > women have dominated crime writing， as in the so-called<br > golden age of detective fiction， usually defined as between the<br > first novel of Agatha Christie and the last of Dorothy L.<br > Sayers. Often the most popular novels of the day， and those<br > thought to be the best in their genre were written b women.<br > But as in so man area ， - . Y<br > y s of women s wrmng， many of these<br > have been allowed to go out of print. Few people know the<br > ~ names of Josephine Bell， Pamela Branch， Hilda Lawrence，<br > Marion Mainwaring or Anthony Gilbert (whose real name<br > . was.Lucy Malleson). Their novels are just as good and enter-<br > ~ammg as when they were first written.<br > Women s importance in the field of crime writing is just as<br > vital today， p. D. James， Ruth Rendell and P<br > have all ensured that cri . . . atnoa Highsmith<br > ao well kno me writing is treated seriously. Not<br > terainist wn， but equally flourishing， is a new branch of<br >L~. crime writers. We plan to introduce many new<br > writers from this area， from En lan<br > The inte-rati ， g d and other countries.<br > ~ on or reprints and new novels is sometimes<br >