Julian Gustave Symons (1912-1994) was a British writer and critic, best known for his crime fiction. In 1958 he completed a list of the 100 Best Crime Stories for the London Sunday Times newspaper. Here it is:
1794: William Godwin, Caleb Williams
1845: Edgar Allan Poe, Tales of Mystery and Imagination
1860: Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White
1864: Sheridan Le Fanu, Uncle Silas
1868: Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone
1870: Charles Dickens, The Mystery of Edwin Drood
1882: Robert Louis Stevenson, The New Arabian Nights
1886: Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
1887: Emile Gaboriau, The Mystery of Orcival
1887: Fergus Hume, The Mystery of a Hansom Cab
1894: Arthur Conan Doyle, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
1895: Arthur Machen, The Three Impostors
1899: E. W. Hornung, Raffles
1902: Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles
1907: Jacques Futrelle, The Thinking Machine
1907: Maurice Leblanc, The Seven of Hearts
1909: Gaston Leroux, The Mystery of the Yellow Room
1909: Baroness Orczy, The Old Man in the Corner
1910: A. E. W. Mason, At the Villa Rose
1911: G. K. Chesterton, The Innocence of Father Brown
1912: R. Austin Freeman, The Singing Bone
1913: E. C. Bentley, Trent’s Last Case
1914: Ernest Bramah, Max Carrados
1915: John Buchan, The Thirty-Nine Steps
1920: Sapper, Bull-Dog Drummond
1922: Edgar Wallace, The Crimson Circle
1922: A. A. Milne, The Red House Mystery
1922: Freeman Wills Crofts, The Pit-Prop Syndicate
1924: A. E. W. Mason, The House of the Arrow
1926: Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
1926: C. S. Forester, Payment Deferred
1928: S. S. Van Dine, The Greene Murder Case
1928: Frances Noyes Hart, The Bellamy Trial
1928: W. Somerset Maugham, Ashenden
1929: Anthony Berkeley, The Poisoned Chocolates Case
1929: H. C. Bailey, Mr. Fortune Speaking
1931: Thomas Burke, The Pleasantries of Old Quong
1931: Dashiell Hammett, The Glass Key
1931: William Faulkner, Sanctuary
1931: Francis Iles, Malice Aforethought
1931: Hugh Walpole, Above the Dark Circus
1932: Ellery Queen, The Greek Coffin Mystery
1933: Dorothy L. Sayers, Murder Must Advertise
1933: Ethel Lina White, The Wheel Spins
1934: Margery Allingham, Death of a Ghost
1934: James M. Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice
1934: F. Tennyson Jesse, A Pin to See the Peep-Show
1934: Rex Stout, Fer-de-Lance
1935: Ellery Queen, The Adventures of Ellery Queen
1935: Ernest Raymond, We, the Accused
1935: Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night
1935: John Dickson Carr, The Hollow Man
1936: Erle Stanley Gardner, The Case of the Sleepwalker�s Niece
1936: Graham Greene, A Gun For Sale
1937: Michael Innes, Hamlet, Revenged!
1937: Jonathan Latimer, The Lady in the Morgue
1938: Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca
1938: Philip MacDonald, The Nursemaid Who Disappeared (Warrant for X)
1939: Eric Ambler, The Mask of Demetrios
1939: Geoffrey Household, Rogue Male
1939: Ngaio Marsh, Overture to Death
1940: Raymonmd Postgate, Verdict of Twelve
1941: Patrick Hamilton, Hangover Square
1941: John Mair, Never Come Back
1942: Cyril Hare, Tragedy at Law
1943: Raymond Chandler, The High Window
1943: Georges Simenon, The Lodger
1944: Vera Caspary, Laura
1945: Agatha Christie, Death Comes as the End
1945: William Irish, Phantom Lady
1946: Edmund Crispin, The Moving Toyshop
1946: Helen Eustis, The Horizontal Man
1947: Kenneth Fearing, The Big Clock
1947: Edgar Lustgarten, A Case to Answer or One More Unfortunate
1948: John Franklin Bardin, Devil Take the Blue-Tail Fly
1948: Roy Fuller, With My Little Eye
1949: Roy Vickers, The Department of Dead Ends
1950: Charlotte Armstrong, Mischief
1950: Christianna Brand, Cat and Mouse
1950: W. R. Burnet, The Asphalt Jungle
1950: Michael Gilbert, Smallbone Deceased
1951: Victor Canning, Venetian Bird
1951: Georges Simenon, Maigret in Montmartre
1951: Josephine Tey, The Daughter of Time
1952: John Bingham, My Name is Michael Sibley
1952: Edward Grierson, Reputation for a Song
1953: Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
1953: John Ross Macdonald, The Ivory Grin
1953: Hillary Waugh, Last Seen Wearing
1954: Ira Levin, A Kiss Before Dying
1955: Margot Bennett, The Man Who Didn’t Fly
1955: Michael Innes, The Man From the Sea
1955: Margaret Millar, A Beast in View
1955: Patrick Quentin, The Man With Two Wives
1956: Nicholas Blake, A Tangled Web
1956: Patricia Highsmith, The Blunderer
1956: Shelley Smith, The Lord Have Mercy
1957: Stanley Ellin, Mystery Stories
1957: Ian Fleming, From Russia With Love
1957: Meyer Levin, Compulsion