Mon 17 Aug 2009
A TAD Review by Allen J. Hubin: ANONYMOUS – The Smiling Corpse.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[5] Comments
by Allen J. Hubin
![ANONYMOUS [WYLIE] The Smiling Corpse](https://mysteryfile.com/blogImg809/Anon-Corpse.jpg)
ANONYMOUS – The Smiling Corpse. Farrar & Rinehart, hardcover, 1935.
This book is not notable for its great writing but for the unusual if not unique nature of the author’s approach.
The critic Wendel Hyat is guest of honor at a literary tea to celebrate the publication of his treatise on detective fiction, “From Poe to Plethora.” The gathering is peopled almost exclusively with famous persons, such as Tallulah Bankhead, Robert Benchley, Heywood Broun, James M. Cain, Clifton Fadiman, George Gershwin, Elsa Maxwell, Gene Tunney and dozens of others, all of whom are humorously identified in the Who’s Who at the beginning of the book.
Incidentally, a note in the Who’s Who states: “If any character in this book bears a resemblance in name or otherwise to any living person, it is sheer coincidence. None of the persons in this book is real.”
Hyat, who was diligently hated by everyone who knew him, is naturally discovered to be a smiling corpse. Among the guests at the tea are also G. K. Chesterton, Sax Rohmer, Dashiell Hammett and S. S. Van Dine. The author sets these men to solving the murder while behaving like their detective creations.
Cleric G. K. Chesterton tries not to overlook the obvious, Sax Rohmer suspects a sinister Chinese influence, Dashiell Hammett gets himself shot, and S. S. Van Dine overflows with erudition and says “deah man.”
As might be expected, none of these men is outstandingly successful in solving the crime, particularly since they operate under a certain ignorance about the actual instrument of death.
The author appears to have enjoyed himself in contriving this spoof, and it would seem that he had more than a nodding acquaintance with the works of the four mystery writers. Their characterizations, though naturally overdrawn, seem accurate enough.
The book made enjoyable reading, but its attraction lies in the intriguing and amusing possibilities of the contrived situations rather than any element of suspense. Here’s an interesting bibliographical puzzle: who was the anonymous author of this parody — an established author under his own name, or a timid unknown?
Editorial Update. 08-17-09. I’m not sure when it was discovered, but the authors of this rather desirable (and pricey) detective mystery are now known to be the co-writing tandem of Philip Wylie and Bernard A. Bergman. See, for example, this online bibliography for the first (and more well-known?) of the two authors.
August 17th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
I love this maliciously funny, yet oddly affectionate book. The take on Van Dine (Wright) and Hammett is great. Incidentally the case is solved by an attractive Irish detective from Homicide. If nothing else he gives away the Wylie influence.
Don’t expect a great mystery, but then novel length works of this sort are fairly rare and this one comes as close to working as any I’ve read, and Wylie is always at his best when he is being himself — sarcastic, iconoclastic, and outrageous.
August 18th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
The discovery that Philip Wylie was behind The Smiling Corpse was revealed fairly early when Frank Gruber broke the author’s cover in TAD 2: April 1969. Later I acquired a copy of the book that had been signed by Wylie and reported on this and my brief correspondence with Wylie and his co-author in a later issue of TAD (3: April 1970). Last summer Dick Lupoff decided the world was ready for a new printing of The Smiling Corpse (to be published by Fender Tucker)and asked me to provide a fresh introduction to bring the background story up to date. My understanding is that in the fullness of time this will be available to an eager reading public.
August 18th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Thanks, Randy!
What you’ve done is saved me from spending ninety dollars for a used copy of SMILING CORPSE, if not more. After reading Al Hubin’s review, along with David’s followup comment, I was convinced I had to own a copy. It also appeared to be a prime candidate for reprinting, and why am I not surprised that Dick Lupoff and Fender Tucker have picked up on it?
I shall await the reprint edition with the proverbial.
I’m still working my way through the first four issues of TAD, looking for choice items to reprint, and hadn’t come across Gruber’s information yet, nor your own later article.
That Bergman was a co-author is a fact that’s not stated in the CD version of the REVISED CRIME FICTION IV. It’s been in Al’s printed text all along, but until now, only Wylie’s name has been given on the CD, an omission that shall be fixed shortly…
— Steve
August 19th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
One note, Chesterton was a Catholic and since there is no such thing as a lay cleric in the Catholic Church he isn’t technically a cleric, though in this book he does ape his creation Father Brown.
Chesterton was a Christian, and particularly a Catholic, apologist in the same sense of Lewis, Sayers, or the British Charles Williams (none of them Catholics or clerics). As far as I know cleric only refers to the clergy, not religious lay people.
I know, picky picky picky …
June 9th, 2014 at 2:56 pm
I have credited Phil Wylie with having produced the first MULTI-SLEUTH SPOOF, that is, a single murder being investigated by multiple famous detectives or, as in Wylie’s case, their authors. Following Wylie (1935), there are Leo Bruce (1936), Marion Mainwaring (1954), and the book that destroyed the multi-sleuth genre, Fruterro and Lucentini’s (1989) The D. Case.