Hi Steve,

   I wonder if you can help me. I need to get hold of an obituary for novelist and screenwriter Roy Chanslor who died in September 1964. It seems the only one appeared in an issue of Variety sometime that fall. I don’t know if you know anyone who might be able to help, or if you could ‘advertise’ on your blog. I would be most grateful if you could. Variety does have a sort of archive, but it’s only for old film reviews,

       Bibliographic data [crime fiction only]:

CHANSLOR, ROY. 1899-1964.
       Lowdown. Farrar & Rinehart, hc, 1931.
       Hazard. Simon & Schuster, hc, 1947; Bantam #474, pb, 1949. Film: Paramount, 1948 (scw: Arthur Sheekman, Roy Chanslor; dir: George Marshall).

[Expanded from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin.]

   Chanslor also has a long list of writing credits on IMDB, including Tarzan Triumphs, The House of Fear, Black Angel and Cat Ballou.

   Bill Crider had an interesting post about him last year on his blog. Follow the link.

   More? His wife, Torrey Chanslor, was both a well-known illustrator of children’s books and a two-time mystery writer. Where or when she died is apparently unknown, but her two detective novels have recently been reprinted by Rue Morgue Press. Follow this second link for a long biographical essay about her.

CHANSLOR, (Marjorie) TORREY (Hood). 1899-?
      Our First Murder (Stokes, 1940, hc) [Lutie and Amanda Beagle; New York City, NY]
      Our Second Murder (Stokes, 1941, hc) [Lutie and Amanda Beagle; New York City, NY]

    The following observation and question was first posted here by Vince Keenan on June 4, 2007:

    I didn’t know, but I more or less assumed that Vince was right. No one responded to this online inquiry to say for sure, until today, when I heard from Gabe Lee, who left the following comment:

    When I thanked Gabe for leaving a definitive answer at last, he replied:

    To which I responded by saying: I think that researchers with graduate theses and dissertations in mind will have a field day with all of the in-jokes and cross-references in Westlake’s work. If Westlake had been a “literary” figure instead of a mere mystery writer, I’d be sure of it.

    Then to Gabe, for the final word:

   Back in May it was that I posted an inquiry from John Herrington about some records in North Carolina that should shed some light, he thought, on the true identity of British mystery writer A. Fielding, until recently thought to be a pseudonym of Lady Dorothy Feilding, 1889-1935.

   Catching up with what John’s learned since then, here are a couple of emails from him. From late July:

   More recently, here’s an email from John that reached me a couple of days ago:

   Just another reason for everyone with an interest in Golden Age and (mostly) traditional mysteries to anxiously await the next issue of CADS (short for Crime and Detective Stories).

   Geoff Bradley, the editor, doesn’t maintain an online presence, but information about issue 50 can be found here. The issue most recently mailed is #54. His email address is Geoffcads @ aol.com

   A distant relative of this female author recently asked me if I had any information about her. Unfortunately, other than the list of books she wrote, I didn’t. It seems, though, that the following photo has recently surfaced on the Internet, helping to prompt the inquiry, and I thought you’d like to see it, too.

   There are no prizes for this contest, but before I tell you the little that’s known about her, I thought I’d see if anyone recognizes her, especially in light of the fact that such a beautiful woman later became, believe it or not, a hard-boiled P.I. writer.

   Between 1939 and 1953 she wrote 21 novels under her own name, most of them with one private eye leading character, and 11 more under a pen name, all of these cases tackled by another PI.

   Maybe this is too much information, making the contest too easy, but if I didn’t tell you anything, I don’t think anyone would come up with the answer at all!

   The link above leads to an installment of the online Addenda to the Revised Crime Fiction IV, which contained an entry for Williams. He was born in 1935, with no known year of death. In fact, there’s very little information about him available online. The short bio I wrote for him in the Addenda entry is about all I could come up with.

   Al Hubin, when I asked him, said in reply that he’d discovered much the same thing, which was nothing:

   And at this point in time, this is as far as we’ve gotten. Assistance, if any, would be welcome.

[UPDATE] 07-14-08.   I’m over a week delayed in posting this, but today’s better than tomorrow, at least. I heard from one source who’d prefer to stay anonymous, but who had a lot to say about Alan Williams and his career, none of it substantial enough to put online.

   I passed the information on to Susan, though, who replied with thanks. She also added: “I heard from a distant relative who says he is still with us.” She’s now trying to see if she can speak to him, “if I’m lucky enough to do so.”

   More later, it may be, if things work out the way she hopes.

   The past few weeks have busy if not increasingly hectic for me, and I have in hand an ever-growing amount of email that I’ve not replied to or to followed up on as I’ve agreed to. To remedy the situation, I think I’ll take this week on the blog to get catch up on as many of these as I can.

   Some of these have been inquiries, and if I’ve been able to answer, I have. Some I haven’t been able to answer, such as this from John Herrington, over in the UK:

>> I asked John for more details, and (if I understand correctly) his question concerns a mystery novel that was (apparently) never published, but later became the subject of a court case brought by the author’s widow against publishers Ward Lock and Gilbert Collins.

   Here’s John again:

   If anyone’s in a position to help, please email me, and I’ll pass the word on to John, who can then provide you with more details.

   John has also asked me to repeat a similar request from him posted in late March. One tentative offer to help seems to have fallen through, thus this second posting:

    Any assistance toward answering any of these questions would be greatly appreciated. Leave a comment or reply to me directly, and I’ll pass the word along to those who are asking.

(1) From John Herrington in the UK:

    “I have been doing some research on the elusive Dorothy Feilding/A. Fielding and have discovered that papers relating to her are held in the collection of papers of UK literary agent A.P. Watt which are held in the library of the University of South Carolina.

    “I asked the library but they are not willing to look themselves!! A pity as there might be vital clues about her. They suggested using a professional searcher, but I don’t want to pay up front for possibly a zero result – plus paying anyone might be difficult as I do not use credit cards.

    “Don’t suppose you know anyone who might have access to the library who might be willing to have a look?”

(2) From Ken Johnson:

    “I believe I mentioned previously that I am working on an addition to my Digest Index which will index the contents of the anthologies and collections therein. I have everything I need except for two books that are eluding me. I am writing to you in the hope that you can help me with these, or network me to someone who can.

    “The hardest book to find is the Bonded Mystery edition of This Is Mr. Fortune by H. C. Bailey. The only documentation on this book is the listing in Kevin Hancer’s Price Guide. No library on the web has it and no one ever seems to be selling one.

    “The most frustrating book is the Bestseller Library edition of The Mysterious Mr. Quin by Agatha Christie. Several libraries on the World Catalog have it but my attempts to get information through inter-library loan have been frustrated by the response that the book apparently does not have a contents page. It would seem I need to convince a friendly librarian to actually look at it and jot down the contents for me. I am optimistic on this score by the discovery that one of the libraries that has a copy is Bowling Green University.

    “So, my first question is: do you know anyone, or can you network me to anyone, connected to Bowling Green University or their Popular Culture collection who might be willing to accommodate my request for info on the Christie book?

    “The second question is: would you be willing to mention my quest for the contents of these two books in one of your blog entries, in the hope of drawing the info out of some collector?

    “Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated. The completed index will document several abridged mystery collections whose exact contents are not otherwise known and therefore will be potential annotations for the Addenda to Al Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV. I also be glad, after it is posted, to share with you my documentation for these collections.”

    That edition of the book by H. C. Bailey may not exist. My copy of Hancer’s guide isn’t handy at the moment, but a quick check reveals that Graham Holroyd does not include it in his. Neither fact, that it’s in one and not the other, is entirely convincing. It would be nice to know for sure.

(3) This question’s from me. As everyone reading this already knows, I’m sure, Phyllis Whitney died not too long ago at the age of 104. While doing some research in CFIV over the weekend, I came across the following entry:

EMERY, (Russell) GUY (1908- )
       Front for Murder (Macrae-Smith, 1947, hc) [San Francisco, CA] Boardman pb, 1948.

   I asked Al Hubin whether he had any updated information about Mr. Emery. His reply: “Probably Guy Emery is not still alive, but he’s not in ssdi under any combination of his name, and peoplefinders doesn’t turn up anyone born in 1908.”

   And that’s as far as I’ve gotten with this, except that it does give me a good chance to add a cover image that I’ve always thought was quite nice:

[UPDATE] 03-26-08. Results so far:

(1) One tentative offer to do the library research has been tendered so far, but if you live in that part of the country and are willing to do the required digging into some archives, please check to see if things have worked out as we hope they have.

(2) Ken has been in touch with a Popular Culture librarian at Bowling Green, and the titles of Mr. Quin stories are now known. As for the H. C. Bailey title, here’s what Dan Roberts has had to say:

Steve: Please pass this on to Ken Johnson or post it on your blog.

I can’t speak to the Christie Bestseller title, but no library or bookseller has the Bonded This is Mr. Fortune title because I’m virtually certain that it does not exist. Hancer is not the only reference that lists it — R. Reginald and M.R. Burgess also list it in Cumulative Paperback Index 1939-1959, Gale Research Co., Detroit 1973 page 9.

It is well-known that Reginald and Burgess (actually only Reginald — Burgess is a fictitious name) salted his compilation with a number of books that do not exist in order to nail plagiarists, and Hancer did indeed plagiarize and was successfully sued by Reginald. Since I’m familiar with the Bonded series (having once had them all and now having about 90% of them — some are digest size, others are pb size), I’m virtually certain the Fortune title is one of Reginald’s fake listings. H.C. Bailey’s The Twittering Bird Mystery (Bonded No. 8 ) does exist, however.

Hope this helps. Dan Roberts.

(3) Nothing yet on Guy Emery.

[UPDATE] 03-27-08. A reply from Ken Johnson, re the H. C. Bailey mystery:

Steve,

Actually I disagree. The intro to Reginald’s Cumulative Paperback Index mentions the check entries and states that none of them involve real authors, which is definitely the case for all the ones so far known. While Reginald lists both the Susan Wells ((Footsteps in the Air)) and the H. C. Bailey (which Hancer identifies as #s 15 and 16) he does not supply the book numbers, so Hancer could not have cribbed them from him. It is also my understanding that all of Reginald’s check entries were purged from Hancer’s later editions.

I looked again at my copy of Bonded Mystery #13. The inside back cover has an ad for both the Wells and Bailey books, with black and white drawings of the covers, stating that they will both be on sale next month. Since I cannot find any other confirmation of their existence, they were probably never issued. Hancer may very well have assigned them book numbers as a way of generating his own check entries, which he seems to have done a lot of after Reginald sued him for repeating his check entries.

I will have to update the entry in my Digest Index. If I hadn’t gone looking for the contents I might never have spotted this. Please thank Dan for his comments; I would appreciate any other comments he might have that would improve my index. I still have a lot to learn.

All my best,

Ken

   While I collect Gothic romance paperbacks, I certainly have not read most of them. Yet, that is. So when I get an inquiry like the following, I’m seldom of very much help. It’s a long shot, I know, but I’m posting the question here, just in case someone stops by sometime and recognizes the book right away. You never know.

   Leave a comment or email me directly, and I’ll pass the word along to L.B.

PS. And as I said in my first reply to her, several of Wilkie Collins’s books were published in paperback as Gothics. This was early on in the craze for them, before a crew of authors had been established to write new ones and publishers were growing frantic trying to jump on the gravy wagon. Anything that could be published as a Gothic was, back in those days. All they had to do was to put a new cover on it, one with a girl in the foreground, running from a spooky manor house in the background.

   Here’s her question:

   Donna Frey left a comment on my blog entry about gothic romantic mystery paperbacks a while back, and I thought it might be more useful if posted my reply as a new blog entry, instead of leaving it hidden where no one would find it.

   Here’s what Donna asked:

   Donna, you’re not alone in liking the gothics that Theresa Charles wrote. I’ve been asked a few times before to be on the lookout for her books by people trying to find them. (They’re not all that difficult to come across, but again there must be a demand for them. The asking prices online start around $4.00, which as the low end price for a gothic, is rather high.)

   As far as a biography is concerned, technically speaking, there is or was no “Theresa Charles.” That was the joint pen name of two British authors, Irene Maude Swatridge and Charles John Swatridge, neither no longer living. Other than their names, though, I’ve never found much of anything more about them. I assume they are were a married couple, but of course this doesn’t mean that they were. Irene also wrote a few books on her own, using a pair of other pen names. I’ll list the titles below.

   You’re right in being wary of buying any books by Theresa Charles without knowing more about them. A lot of the books under her name appear to have been straight romances, including (yes) Doctor-Nurse affairs. The list of titles below are from Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin. With one possible (and obvious) exception, these would be your best bets as books to start hunting down. [UK = British edition.]

      CHARLES, THERESA; pseudonym of Irene Maude Swatridge & Charles John Swatridge; other pseudonyms: Leslie Lance & Jan Tempest
         * The Burning Beacon (Cassell, UK, 1956, hc) Lancer, 1966.
         * Fairer Than She (Cassell, UK, 1953, hc) Dell, 1968.
         * Happy Now I Go (Longman[s], UK, 1947, hc) U.S. title: Dark Legacy. Dell, 1968.
         * House on the Rocks (Hale, UK, 1962, hc) Paperback Library, 1966.
         * The Man for Me (Hale, UK, 1965, hc) U.S. title: The Shrouded Tower. Ace, 1966.
         * Nurse Alice in Love (Hale, UK, 1964, hc) U.S. title: Lady in the Mist. Ace, 1966.
         * Proud Citadel (Hale, UK, 1967, hc) Dell, 1967.
         * Widower’s Wife (Hale, UK, 1963, hc) U.S. title: Return to Terror. Paperback Library, 1966.

      LANCE, LESLIE; pseudonym of Irene Maude Swatridge; other pseudonyms: Theresa Charles & Jan Tempest
         * The Bride of Emersham (Pyramid, 1967, pb) British title?
         * Dark Stranger (Low, UK, 1946, hc)
         * The Girl in the Mauve Mini (Hale, UK, 1979, hc)
         * The House in the Woods (Ace, 1973, pb) British title?

      TEMPEST, JAN; pseudonym of Irene Maude Swatridge; other pseudonyms: Theresa Charles & Leslie Lance
         * House of the Pines (Mills, UK, 1946, hc) Ace, 1968.

   I hope this helps!

Hi Steve,

   Please find below a brief biography (well, the only one I have found) on the writer who, as Armitage Trail, wrote the novel Scarface.

   I wonder if anyone has ever done any research to track down the pseudonymous work mentioned in it. I asked Victor Berch who knows little more — apparently he could not even find him in the census for the years he was alive. (Apparently his brother, also difficult to trace in official records, wrote over 20 episodes for the Addams Family [television show] amongst other work).

   Just wonder if he is worth putting in your blog to see if anyone can add to the bio?

   Armitage Trail was a pseudonym for the American author Maurice Coons. The son of a theatrical impresario who managed the road tours of the New Orleans Opera Company, and also manufactured furniture and farm silos, Maurice Coons left school at 16 to devote all his time to writing stories. By 17 or 18, he was already selling stories to magazines. By his early twenties he was writing whole issues of various detective-story magazines under a great assortment of various names. And at 28 — after going to New York to write more stories, and from there to Hollywood to write movies — he dropped dead of a heart attack at the downtown Paramount Theatre in Los Angeles.

   At the time of his death, he weighed 315 pounds, had a flowing brown moustache, and wore Barrymore-brim Borsalina hats. He was survived by his brother, humorous writer Hannibal Coons.

   Maurice Coons gathered the elements for Scarface when living in Chicago, where he became acquainted with many local Sicilian gangs. For a couple of years, Coons spent most of his nights prowling Chicago’s gangland with his friend, a lawyer, and spent his days sitting in the sun room of his Oak Park apartment writing Scarface. He never did meet Al Capone, who was the inspiration for his immortal character, though Capone was very much alive when his book was published.

   When Howard Hughes was making plans to produce the movie, Coons wanted Edward G. Robinson to play the leading role because of his resemblance to Capone but being Hollywood, it ended up with Paul [Muni] playing Scarface, a different-looking sort of man altogether. The author did not live to see the picture, but Al Capone did, and screenwriter Ben Hecht had to talk fast to convince his henchmen that Scarface was not based on him. Scarface was also made into a film in 1983, directed by Brian de Palma and starring AI Pacino. Armitage Trail’s only other surviving novel is The Thirteenth Guest ( 1929). Both his novels prefigure the birth of hard-boiled fiction and Black Mask magazine.

   From Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin:

COONS, MAURICE (1902-1930); see pseudonym Armitage Trail.

TRAIL, ARMITAGE; pseudonym of Maurice Coons.

   * * Scarface (Clode, 1930, hc) [Chicago, IL] Long, 1931. Film: United Artists, 1932 (scw: Fred Palsey, W. R. Burnett, John Lee Mahin, Seton I. Miller, Ben Hecht; dir: Howard Hawks). Also: Universal, 1983 (scw: Oliver Stone; dir: Brian De Palma).

   * * The Thirteenth Guest (Whitman, 1929, hc) Film: Monogram, 1932 (scw: Francis Hyland, Arthur Hoerl, Armitage Trail; dir: Albert Ray). Also: Monogram, 1943, as Mystery of the Thirteenth Guest (scw: Charles Marlon, Tim Ryan, Arthur Hoerl; dir: William Beaudine).