Jay,
Re your question below:
"Does anyone know who first used the word 'cozy' to describe,
not necessarily in a negative way, the puzzle-mystery or
whodunit type story usually set in a place where the
'somebodies' live, and in which the perpetrator is punished
and the evil removed from the then-healthy community?"
I don't know the name of the person who coined the phrase,
but, as I understand it, it was first used in the late '50's
by a mystery critic who didn't particularly like traditional
mysteries, and, apparently, he did mean it to be a dismissive
term.
It began to be more commonly used to describe around the
'70's and '80's, and I think at least part of the impetus for
this was the publication of a VERY traditional mystery novel
in the Christie/Marsh/Sayers tradition by James Anderson
called THE AFFAIR OF THE BLOOD-STAINED EGG COSY. It had a
surprisingly large vogue, and many reviewers applauded the
author's rigorously traditional approach. I suspect that the
book's title was at leart part of the reason the term was
commonly adopted for traditional crime novels.
Another factor may have been the way Dilys Wynn, founder of
the late lamented MYSTERY INK bookstore in NYC shelved books.
Rather than simply put the in alphabetical order, she tended
to shelve by sub-genre.
Traditionalists like Christie were shelved in a section
Ms. Wynn labeled "English Teacake Ladies," whether or not the
authors were either English or ladies. It's not that big a
jump from "teacake" to
"tea cozy" or "tea cosy." And an even smaller jump to
just-plain "cozy."
But the initial use, though it took awhile to catch on, was,
as I say, in the late '50's.
JIM DOHERTY
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