What was the first book in which "the butler did it"? Were there loads of these stories at one time?

Question

Or, has anyone ever murdered the butler?

Answer 1

Mary Roberts Rinehart - An American author and the source of the phrase 'the butler did it'. The cliche phrase came from Rinehart's novel, The Door - sorry for the spoiler! - in which the butler actually did do it (although the exact phrase doesn't appear in the work - Tim Kelly adapted Rinehart's play 'The Butler Did It').

Answer 2

have you ever seen a Victorian film from early days of cinema, the forerunner of these flickering images was a machine that was put into arcades along the coast of England, what we call seaside towns Blackpool, is one of the more famous, from these machines you had a short series of peephole soft pornography images, these machines went under a colloquial name of ''What the Butler saw''
penny thrills.
many writers of stories from the 1920s included a butler as a character, JEEVES, etc Hercule Poirot had a man servant,
Bulldog Drummond had a Butler/manservant.
they were popular stories of that era.
Agatha Christie, Conan Doyle, used butlers in very many of the books, as a way of introducing and linking the main protagonists together. REGARDS FL

Answer 3

Isn't it more of a reference to Cluedo?

Or maybe I'm wrong, can't say I've read a book where the Butler did it. None that spring to mind anyway!

Might be worth checking out;

www.who-dunnit.com/

Answer 4

Agatha Christie's - 'Mousetrap'