Crime Fiction IV

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Fri 19 Jan 2007

JOHN DELLBRIDGE – Identity Revealed

Posted by Steve under Authors , Crime Fiction IV
[26] Comments 

   At the present time, the entry for mystery writer John Dellbridge in Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, looks like this:

DELLBRIDGE, JOHN (1887-?)

* * * -The Moles of Death (Diamond, 1927, hc) [India]

* * * Sons of Tumult (Long, 1928, hc) [Pakistan]

* * * The Honourable Sir John (Long, 1929, hc) [England]

Searchlight * * * Searchlight on Hambledon (Hurst, 1947, hc) [Rupert Hambledon; England] Story collection:

• Clowns Are Serious Sometimes • ss
• Conversation Piece with Postscript • ss
• The Defeat of Hambledon • ss
• Devastating Sanity • ss
• Entirely Self Made • ss
• The Fire That Was Quenched • ss
• Horses Can’t Be Trusted • ss
• Last of the Screwleighs • ss
• Letter to His Bishop • ss
• Modern Messalina • ss
• Ronnie the Rat • ss

* * * Unfit to Plead (Hurst, 1949, hc) [Rupert Hambledon; England]

* * * The Lady in the Wood (Hurst, 1950, hc) [Rupert Hambledon; England]

   British bookseller Jamie Sturgeon, however, has discovered the website for The University of the West Indies at St. Augustine, Trinidad & Tobago, where the papers of Frederick Joseph De Verteuil are stored.

   On the page describing their holdings for him it states that De Verteuil was born in Trinidad in 1887, and that he “went to England at the age of fourteen in 1901 and later qualified as a lawyer at Gray’s Inn. He practised as a barrister in India for several years and later returned to England where he continued practising law until he was debarred from practice due to misrepresenting his clients in court. [See FOOTNOTE.] He then became a little known writer of novels and short stories, historical works and semi-scientific commentaries. He wrote under three different pseudonyms: John Dellbridge, Freddy Bannister and Francis Vere.”

   Neither Bannister nor Vere are in CFIV, but John Dellbridge’s identity has clearly now been revealed.

Lady

   Jamie emailed Al Hubin with his discovery, who in turn did some followup investigating:

   Too bad the site doesn’t give a death date. I’ll have to do a little trolling on the real name and see if I can find it.

[Later] The only reference (other than the one Jamie gives) that turned up in a google search was a wedding notice for one Carl Frederick de Verteuil, which mentions that his father (a novelist!) retired as managing director of cruise ship newspapers published by the Thomas Skinner company in Toronto! The groom’s age (35) makes it virtually impossible that he was the son of “Dellbridge” (who would have been some 88 years old when Carl was born), but could he be the grandson? Incidentally, there’s no trace of anyone name de Verteuil in the Canada National Catalogue. But in the British Library Catalogue is a book by one Anthony de Verteuil, The de Verteuils of Trinidad 1797-1997, which might very likely shed further light on “Dellbridge” and perhaps others And Frederick Joseph de Vertueil (almost certainly “Dellbridge”) published an autobiographical book under his real name in 1938, Fifty Wasted Years, which might also make interesting reading And there’s a Carl de Verteuil with several novels ca.1950-1960 (the groom’s father?). Anthony de Verteuil has quite a number of books going back to 1973 though they don’t seem to be novels. All very interesting!

   And here is where the matter stands. Even if nothing further is found, we now know considerably more about on the pseudonymous John Dellbridge than we did before. As for Rupert Hambledon, there’s nothing known about him at the moment, but there will be soon. I (this is Steve) have purchased a copy of The Lady in the Wood, pictured above, and it’s now on its way to me from England. When I know more, you’ll read about it here.

[UPDATE: 01-20-07] Here’s a short note received by email from John Herrington:

Hi Steve,

It appears that Francis Vere was used on a 1952 novel Don Ricardo and the 1955 Salt in Their Blood about Dutch admirals. There are also some 1950s works on Piltdown Man and evolution which have the same name as author. Coincidence or same writer I know not.

Cannot find anything by Freddy Bannister. A Google search is hampered by the fact that that was the name of the man who organised the Knebworth concerts.

And who was the Frederick Benedict De Verteuil who wrote the 1949 Almost Glory as F. Benedict? Presume he must be related.

Regards

  John



[UPDATE: 04-04-07] Taken from an email from Carl de Verteuil, mentioned above, who also has two posts in the comments section —

  Steve,

   My grandfather died in 1963 (I don’t have the exact date) but it was sometime in the autumn — at about the same time as JFK and Aldous Huxley !

   I’ll see if I can gather some more information from my uncle “Cook” (son of Frederick) about his mystery writing. He was a prolific author and is well regarded in his native Trinidad (the de Verteuils were one of the French families to have settled there after the French revolution).

   Unfortunately, he wrote under several different names which probably didn’t help his cause too much. Uncle Cook (who is also referred to in your blog) is now 88 years old and was himself an author although not of mystery books.

   I’ll see what I can find and will get back to you.

Best regards,

      Carl


[FOOTNOTE.] 10-04-08. John Eggeling sent me this information about De Verteuil’s legal problems in an email a few weeks ago, but I’ve only now been able to add it to this post. Says John:

    “In July 1938 Frederick Joseph De Verteuil was found guilty of conspiracy and fraud and he was sentenced to 5 years in prison. A report of his appeal, which failed, appeared in The Times for November 29, 1938.”

   John sent me an attachment containing a copy of that appeal, which is far too long for me to reproduce here. If anyone’s interested, email me, and I should be able to forward it on to you.

 

Sun 14 Jan 2007

CFIV Addenda: Rebecca Tinsley, Janet Tanner, Edwin Dial Torgerson and Carl Buchanan.

Posted by Steve under Authors , Crime Fiction IV
1 Comment 

   John Herrington is one of the more prolific contributors to the continuing flow of Addenda to Allen J. Hubin’s Revised Crime Fiction IV. He describes his recent activity as follows:

    “What I am doing, out of ennui after Christmas, is going through CFIV at random and picking out authors, with a handful of titles or more, whom Allen has yet to find any information on – then googling them. Slow old business as for every name I find something, there are a score or more that remain anonymous.”

The information that follows arrived in a recent email to Al. To provide the proper context, I’ve included the full entries for each of the authors as they presently stand in CFIV, with John’s comments following:

TINSLEY, REBECCA
* * *The Judas File (Headline, 1995, hc) [Charlotte Carter; Ireland]
* * *Settlement Day (Headline, 1994, hc) [Charlotte Carter; London]

Tinsley

   This lady is a journalist, having written in New Statesman, Times, Telegraph etc., and once worked for BBC. Very involved in Humans Rights according to Internet references to her. But no date of birth.

TANNER, JANET
* * *Daughter of Riches (Century, 1992, hc) [Australia] St. Martin’s, 1993.
* * *Deception and Desire (Century, 1993, hc) St. Martin’s, 1995.
* * *Folly’s Child (Century, 1991, hc) St. Martin’s, 1992.

Tanner

   Janet Tanner has written all her life, hundreds of short stories published worldwide before she turned to novel writing. No date of birth. though she is a grandmother with young grandchildren.

TORGERSON, EDWIN DIAL
* * *The Cold Finger Curse (U.K.: Falcon, 1933, hc) [Sgt. Pierre Montigny; New York City, NY]
* * *The Murderer Returns (Lane, 1931, hc) [Sgt. Pierre Montigny; Montreal, Canada] Smith, 1930.

Torgerson

   Found at the website for the Archives Collections at the University of Mississippi:

“The son of a Swedish-immigrant architect, Torgerson was born in Meridian, Mississippi in 1896 and spent part of his early childhood in Oxford. After graduating from high school, he worked for a number of newspapers and edited Hearst’s American Weekly. Torgerson also wrote short stories that appeared in well-known periodicals, including several detective tales. His first full-length novel, The Murderer Returns, takes place in Montreal, Canada. The principal clue is a set of paw prints left in the snow by a cat. In 1937, he moved to Hollywood after MGM invited him to write a screenplay based on one of his mysteries, and he died there the following year.”

From The FictionMags Index, the following magazine short stories (an incomplete listing):

TORGERSON, EDWIN DIAL
* * The Challenger, (ss) McCall’s Jul 1937
* * Heart and Carrots, (ss) McCall’s Nov 1931
* * High Game, (ss) Argosy Dec 31 1938
* * No Questions Asked, (ss) Detective Story Magazine Apr 8 1919
* * One-Horse Bank, (ss) The American Magazine Feb 1936
* * The Second-Seer, (ss) Argosy Sep 13 1919
* * Uneasy Money, (ss) The American Magazine Mar 1935

   From the same University of Mississippi website comes the first discovery of the year. I’ll begin with the present CFIV entry:

BUCHANAN, CARL
* * *The Black Cloak Murders (Pearson, 1936, hc) [North Carolina]
* * *Night of Horror (Mellifont, 1939, pb)
* * *The Red Scorpion (Mellifont, 1939, pb)

Buchanan

   “Carl Buchanan was the pseudonym used by James Robert Peery on The Black Cloak Murders published in London by C. Arthur Pearson, Ltd. in 1936, with later translations in Spanish and Danish. Set in the southern United States, a murderer seeks information concerning a treasure buried in Europe at the end of World War I. Peery was born outside Stewart, Mississippi in 1900 and grew up in Eupora. During World War I, he served in the U.S. Army’s Signal and Intelligence divisions. Once home, he worked in banking and cotton before settling into journalism. Pulp magazines accepted several pot-boilers submitted by him under a penname. Peery reserved his real name for two literary novels that appeared in 1938 and 1940.”

Again from The FictionMags Index:

BUCHANAN, CARL
* * The Crag Island Murders, (nv) Five-Novels Monthly Apr 1932
* * Crimson Goblet, (ss) Clues Aug 1934
* * Finger for Sale, (ss) Clues Oct 1935
* * Laughter in the Chapel, (ss) Clues Apr 1934
* * The Mystery of the Two Glasses, (ss) Clues Jul #2 1930
* * Red Haven, (ss) Clues Dec 1934
* * Rhapsody in Blood, (ss) Clues Feb 1934
* * Right Guy, (ss) Clues Aug #1 1930
* * Screams of the White Cockatoos, (ss) Clues Jul 1934
* * Sweet Racket!, (ss) Clues May #2 1930
* * The Time of the Crime, (na) The Thriller Dec 9 1933
* * 2 Minutes from Murder, (ss) Clues Mar 1935

   [Steve again.] One of the books published by James Robert Peery under his real name is God Rides a Gale (Harper & Brothers, 1940). Curiously, the ABE seller who has a copy of this book describes it thusly: “Inscribed by the author: ‘For Ted Lewis – Greetings! Jim Perry – JKR.’ The second of two literary novels by this Mississippi-born author, who also published mysteries with a co-author under the pseudonym Carl Buchanan.”

Peery

Peery’s first literary novel does not appear for sale on the Internet, nor at present is there an entry for James Robert Peery in CFIV. Al Hubin says: “I’ll add brief notes to the Tinsley and Tanner entries (in Addenda #9); the Torgerson information is pretty well what I have in the Revised CFIV. But the Peery info (along with his 1954 death date) will go into #9 with pleasure.”

   Online presently are Addenda installments 1 through 8. Look for Part 9 shortly.


[UPDATE: 01-22-07] Taken from an email sent by Victor Berch:

Steve:

To Carl Buchanan’s repertoire, you can add the following:

Blind Trail, All-Star Detective Stories Oct. 1930
The Head That Lived, Super Detective Stories July 1935
Hot Car Wreckage, All-Star Detective Stories Apr. 1932
The Monk’s-Hood Murders, All-Star Detective Stories July 1930
Murder By Candlelight, Mystery Apr. 1933
Murder in the Rain, The Underworld Magazine Aug. 1931
The Red Scorpion Murders, World Man Hunters Feb. 1934
Rope’s End, Murder Stories Sep-Oct 1931

There was one other tale under the name Robert Peery, who, I assume, is our man:

The Spy Champion, Startling Detective Stories Mar. 1930.

>> Thanks, Victor. I’m inclined to agree with you about that last story.    –Steve

 

Fri 12 Jan 2007

Death Noted: ELINORE COWAN STONE (1885-1974)

Posted by Steve under Authors , Crime Fiction IV , Obituaries / Deaths Noted
[2] Comments 

Here’s the entry for her as it presently appears in Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin:

STONE, ELINORE COWAN (1884-?) Born in Michigan, raised in Pittsburgh and Boston; newspaperwoman, teacher, magazine short story writer; living in Pittsburgh in 1930s.

* * *Fear Rides the Fog (Appleton, 1937, hc) [Pittsburgh, PA]

The entry is not impressive in itself, but the biographical notes added by Al suggest that there was more to her life than the one mystery novel. What’s nice to be able to do, when it can be done, is to discover the story behind the story, as it were. To that end, the following, which was sent to me by Al a day or so ago, does exactly that.

Article from unnamed newspaper, dated Thursday, March 22, 1973:

   90-Year-Old Couple Enjoys Life By Jan Rider

Today is the 90th birthday of Mrs. Elinore Cowan Stone, Morehead City [North Carolina]. Mrs. Stone has been upset since she lost her wedding ring several months ago. She cannot figure out when, where or how she could have lost it. It is a ring she has worn since June 7, 1915. Today her husband, C.A. Stone, who was 90 years old last month, gave her a new ring. Of course it cannot replace the old one completely, but it is the thought that counts.

Mr. and Mrs. Stone have been married almost 58 years. They have been residents of Morehead City for 19 years. The Stones have a long and happy history. Mrs. Stone does point out, however, that they have not been totally happy. “Nobody can be totally happy. We have been mad as hell at one another at certain times.”

The Stones have enjoyed life. They have traveled and they have both been blessed with good health. Mr. and Mrs. Stone met at the University of California, Sacramento, when they were doing graduate work. “I really can’t remember exactly where we met,” Mrs. Stone said. “It was in an English class. The professor was a real wit,” interjected Mr. Stone. “Don’t you remember? His name was Smith, I think.” “I don’t remember him,” Mrs. Stone said, “But I remember you, so what is fame?”

The Stones came to Morehead City from Pittsburgh, Pa. They had lived there longer than anywhere else, 30 years. They came to Morehead City because of the Chamber of Commerce. When Mr. Stone was planning his retirement, Mrs. Stone wrote to the Chambers of Commerce in numerous towns asking for information concerning the cost of living and facilities in the town. “Morehead City was one of the few towns that sent us any information,” said Mr. Stone, “We liked it the best and moved here in 1954.”

Prior to their marriage, Mrs. Stone taught school in Honolulu. There she developed her interests in drama. She coached several plays during her stay, one of which was “As You Like It.” After their marriage, the Stones lived in California for awhile. They enjoyed the mountains and spent many days camping and scouting the wilds of California.

Later the Stones moved to the Midwest. While there Mrs. Stone continued her teaching. She first taught in a small one-room school on an Indian reservation in New Mexico. Her experiences there are recorded in her first novel, “The Laughingest Lady,” which was published in 1927. The book’s title, Mrs. Stone says, was the name many of her Indian pupils called her. “I don’t think they had ever met anyone like me before. I was always joking and enjoying myself.”

In a faded picture album, Mrs. Stone pointed out pictures of herself and several of her students standing in front of their mud dwellings. Later in the Midwest, Mrs. Stone taught in a one-room school on a large ranch. In 1934 the Stones moved to Pittsburgh when Mr. Stone, an employee of the Navy’s Quality Control department, was transferred. In Pittsburgh Mrs. Stone wrote a column for a local newspaper and continued her writing. While in Pittsburgh, Mrs. Stone published her second book. The book, entitled, “Binks, His Dog and His Heart,” was a children’s story. It was published in 1937. In that same year she also published a mystery novel entitled “Fear Rides the Fog.”

Also published during this same time period were numerous short stories, two of which are included in the “O. Henry Memorial Award” volumes. As Mrs. Stone became more involved in her teaching and her column, written for a Pittsburgh newspaper, her books and short stories became fewer.

Mr. and Mrs. Stone agree that life in Morehead City has been good for them. They have grown to love the area, the people and especially the sea and the salt breezes. Occasionally they will drive over to the beach and walk along the oceanfront. Since Mrs. Stone fell and broke her hip about 10 years ago, their walks have been limited to the board walk area. She is unable to walk safely on the loose sand. On most evenings the Stones can been seen walking around the Camp Glenn school grounds. They enjoy the exercise and fresh evening air.

What do two people 90 years old do all day? “Well, to be honest, we sleep much of the time,” said Mr. Stone. “He watches that thing,” said Mrs. Stone, pointing to the television set. “I can’t stand the cackling voices.” “She doesn’t hear too well any more,” said Mr. Stone. “I hear too well,” said Mrs. Stone.

It is obvious to anyone visiting their home that the Stones do more than sleep or watch television. Two walls in the living room are lined with books. On the shelves are the complete works of Dickens, Kipling, Shakespeare, and Buck. On the side table on top of a recent news magazine is a large magnifying glass used for reading. Numerous volumes of Reader’s Digest Condensed books are noticed and to complete the room are several reading lamps. This world, sometimes referred to as “cold and cruel,” has been warm and gentle for Mr. and Mrs. Stone, probably because they are warm and gentle people.

Here’s Al’s followup note:

It appears CFIV is one year off on her birth year (should be 3/22/1883, if the article is correct). I’ll now see if I can track down a death date, now that I have that date and know that they were last living in Morehead City, North Carolina.

[Later] I’ve found her record in the social security death benefits. And this gives her birth as 3/22/1885 (and death in November 1974). Looks like the article was premature in calling her a 90-year-old … and she didn’t quite make it to that milestone, as it turns out, though her husband did.

Obituary from The News-Times, Morehead City, Beaufort, NC, Thursday, Feb. 1. 6, 1975, pg. 9-A:

Clarence A. Stone. A memorial service for Clarence Stone, 91, Morehead City, was conducted at 4 p.m., Wednesday in St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church. He died Tuesday in Carteret General Hospital. The Rev. King Cole, rector, officiated. Mr. Stone has no immediate survivors.

>> As of 11:30 this morning, no copies were found of Mrs. Stone’s mystery novel offered for sale on the Internet. About five copies of The Laughingest Lady were found. About one the seller adds: The name “Irene L. Cowan” is on the flyleaf (possibly related to the author?).

The short story “The Devil-Fish, by Elinore Cowan Stone, appears in A. Merritt’s Fantasy Magazine, October 1950. Probably a reprint. [See UPDATE 01-25-07]

From The FictionMags Index, here is a partial list of her other stories:

* * All in the Day’s Work, (ss) The Century Sep 1927
* * Be My Valentine, (ss) Woman’s Home Companion Feb 1927
* * The Gritty Little Devil, (ss) The American Magazine Jul 1930
* * Hands Off, (ss) McCall’s Nov 1931
* * Leetla Dog, (ss) Woman’s Home Companion Jul 1925

Also, from Good Housekeeping, February 1926:

“Lonch [sic] for Two” by Elinore Cowan Stone is a short story dealing with the “Americanization” of Hispanic children.

O. Henry prize-winning stories:

1925. Elinore Cowan Stone: “One Uses the Handkerchief” Women’s Home Companion, November 1924.

[UPDATE 01-25-07] Victor Berch did some further investigating into the life of Mrs. Stone, and the results have been posted as a separate entry. Besides uncovering evidence that she was born in 1883 and not 1885, as the Social Security records show, Victor has also added a large number of stories to her bibliography. These should be added to the ones above.

In terms of the story “The Devil-Fish,” a cry for assistance from the members of the Yahoo FictionMags group produced the following response from Ned Brooks:

    “I have a copy of that — it’s an seven and a half page story with a full-page Finlay illo. The ToC blurb is mysterious and seems too complex to be covered in 7.5 pages: “Could Salisbury’s medico-science-filled world find a way to bring him back from the embrace of a civilized savagery?” It has to do — from a quick scan — with a not altogether successful attempt to remove a whole-body tattoo.

    “There is indeed prior copyright information. On both the ToC (under the blurb) and on the bottom of the title page of the story itself (p.92) there is the line —
“Copyright 1926 by Popular Publications, Inc.” The editorial, which runs about a page, discusses George Allan England and Jack Williamson (who have the novel and novelette in the issue) and the contents for the next issue — which never appeared, as this is the last of the five existing issues. No mention of Elinore Cowan Stone there. The Miller/Contento CD-Rom I have knows no more, listing the A. MERRITT printing and the earlier one but with no magazine title given. The attribution to “Popular Publications” is probably incorrect — according to PulpWiki anyway, Steeger founded Popular Publications in 1930.”

Thanks, Ned. My instinct was correct. It’s highly unlikely that Mrs. Stone would have stopped writing in the 1920s only to write a single fantasy story 20 or more years later. I’m not too concerned about the copyright date, assuming that when Popular bought out a magazine that had folded, they transferred all of the copyrights along with it. The question remains, however, which presumably non-genre magazine in 1926 was it that the story first appeared?

[UPDATE 01-27-07] From a posting by Mike Ashley on the Yahoo FictionMags Group, the answer is now known. He said, and I quote:

    “The Devil-Fish” by Elinor Cowan Stone first appeared in Argosy [All-Story Weekly] for 6 March 1926.

And from Ned Brooks again, a description of the story itself —

    No particular reason the story had to be in an SF pulp, it isn’t that skiffy and the borders were a lot fuzzier then anyway. The only skiffy element is that a way to remove a tattoo had been discovered. I think they use lasers now, but removing a full-body tattoo would still be arduous and expensive. The system failed in that when the fellow blushed, the “devil-fish” (a squid or octopus) reappeared in red on his forehead.”

 

Wed 10 Jan 2007

Mr. Clackworthy

Posted by Steve under Characters , Crime Fiction IV , Inquiries , Pulp Fiction
No Comments 

Hi Steve

Can you tell me whether your MR. CLACKWORTHY volume from Wildside contains any tales not collected in the two Chelsea House volumes of the 20’s? I have one of them but not the other.

Best wishes for 2007.

Doug Greene
>>>

This may be more than the rest of the world wants to know, but after I wrote a review of the first Mr. Clackworthy collection, word got around, and I somehow became known as the expert on the character, who was created by Christopher B. Booth and who first appeared in a long series of stories for Detective Story Magazine. Little did anyone know that the stories in Mr. Clackworthy (Chelsea House, 1925) were all that I knew about the fellow, a gentleman con man who preyed on unscrupulous bankers, stockbrokers and other chiselers, thereby striking a certain chord in the hearts of thousands of readers in the Depression era. The stories were quite popular.

Mr. C

But the limited knowledge that I had certainly did not prevent me from being asked to provide the introduction to the recent Wildside collection of Clackworthy adventures — nor prevent me from accepting for that matter, either.

Which of course obliged me to not completely fake it. Even after the Wildside book was published, I continued to hunt around to find as much information as I could come up with. I have the first and third of the three volumes below, but not the second. The stories in the first of the two Chelsea House books are not identified by name. It’s what’s called a fix-up novel: a collection of stories combined into what is called a novel, but is, simply speaking, a collection of stories combined into a novel, some related to each other, others not.

I suspect, but do not know for sure, that the second Chelsea House collection is structured the same way. For the titles of the stories in both books, I am indebted to Gordon W. Huber’s Chelsea House: A Bibliography (June 2001), with the relevant data sent on to me by Don Davidson. For the first book, I matched the story lines with the titles that Gordon listed, his data coming directly from the Street and Smith files located at Syracuse University. (Street and Smith was the publisher of Detective Story Magazine, among tons of other pulp magazines and dime novels over the first half of the past century.)


THE MR. CLACKWORTHY STORY COLLECTIONS:

All of the stories below originally appeared in Detective Story Magazine. There has been no attempt to ascertain which Mr. Clackworthy stories have so far not been collected.

In the first collection, there is one more story than I can match up with a title. Two of the titles have been established by guesswork only, as indicated, and even so, all of the matching should be considered questionable.


MR. CLACKWORTHY
Chelsea House, hardcover, 1925.

Chapters 1-3. The Million Dollar Air Bag. March 9, 1920

Chapters 4-7. Blasted Reputations. March 23, 1920

Chapters 8-10. Painful Extraction. April 27, 1920

Chapters 11-13. The Comeback. May 11, 1920

Chapters 14-20?? Mr. Clackworthy Stakes a Friend. September 28, 1920

Chapters 21-24. Mr. Clackworthy Tells the Truth. October 19, 1920 (a)

Chapters 25-26. [unknown story title]

Chapters 27-28?? A Modern Lazarus. March 30, 1920

Chapters 29-32. Mr. Clackworthy Digs a Hole. July 16, 1921

(a) Contained in the Wildside collection below.


In the second collection, the following titles have been identified. They may not appear in this order in the book, which I have not seen.

MR. CLACKWORTHY, CON MAN
Chelsea House, hardcover, 1927.

Mr. Clackworthy Forgets His Tonic. January 14, 1922

When Mr. Clackworthy Needed a Bracer. January 21, 1922

Mr. Clackworthy and the Auto Rim. January 28, 1922

Mr. Clackworthy Sells a Gold Brick. March 25, 1922

Clackworthy Coddles a Contract. June 3, 1922

Mr. Clackworthy Pays His Income Tax. June 9, 1923

Mr. Clackworthy Takes a Dip in Rye. June 30, 1923

Mr. Clackworthy Tips a Teapot. April 19, 1924


In this latest collection, there seems to be only one overlap with either of the earlier ones.

THE ADVENTURES OF MR. CLACKWORTHY
Wildside Press. Hardcover & Trade Paperback, 2006.

Mr. Clackworthy Tells the Truth. October 19, 1920 (a)

Mr. Clackworthy Within the Law. August 13, 1921

Mr. Clackworthy’s Pipe Dream. March 11, 1922

Mr. Clackworthy Turns Chemist. December 17, 1921

Mr. Clackworthy Digs a Hole. July 16, 1921 (b)

Mr. Clackworthy Revives a Town. September 24, 1921

Mr. Clackworthy Sells Short. February 26, 1921 (b)

Mr. Clackworthy’s Pot of Gold. October 7, 1922.

(a) Appeared in the first Chelsea House collection. The story is also available online.

(b) The dates are in error as given on the copyright page. The ones given here are correct.

 

Mon 8 Jan 2007

Death Noted: PAT STADLEY (1917-2003).

Posted by Steve under Authors , Crime Fiction IV , Obituaries / Deaths Noted
[7] Comments 

At present the entry for mystery writer Pat Stadley in Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, looks like this:

STADLEY, PAT (Anna May Gough) (1918- ); Reference: CA (Contemporary Authors)

* * * Autumn of a Hunter (Random, 1970, hc) [California] Collins, 1971. Also published as: The Murder Hunt. Major, 1977.
* * * The Black Leather Barbarians (Bobbs, 1960, hc) [Los Angeles, CA]
* * * -Daddy-O (Signet, 1960, pb)
* * _The Murder Hunt (Major, 1977, pb) See: Autumn of a Hunter (Random 1970).

Recently discovered is that Autumn of a Hunter was the basis for the TV movie The Deadly Hunt ( Four Star, 1971; scw: Eric Bercovici, Jerry Ludwig; dir: John Newland).

Searches and double-checking into birth and death dates never end as well. Taken from a recent email, Al reveals what he has learned most lately about Ms. Stadley:

This one is a bit confused, but here’s what I’ve found and what I’ve concluded. Stadley has a CA entry, which gives her birth as 8/31/1918 and her residence as Citrus Heights, California. On the other hand, the social security death benefits record has a Patricia A. Stadley, born 9/1/1917, died 2/27/2003 in Citrus Heights, California. I conclude that this is the author in question and I’m going to adopt the social security dates for CFIV.

A plot description for Autumn of a Hunter might read thusly: “A wealthy woman trying to outrun three hired killers in the woods of the high Sierras is trapped by a forest fire.”

… while the cover blurb on the Signet reprint of The Black Leather Barbarians certainly tells the would-be reader what’s in store:

Stadley

“A rough, revealing novel about youthful California motorcyclists and what makes them roar.” — San Francisco Chronicle.

 

Mon 8 Jan 2007

More on Phyllis Gordon Demarest, from Victor Berch

Posted by Steve under Authors , Crime Fiction IV
[14] Comments 

   
The death date of Phyllis Gordon Demarest, an author now with two credits in Crime Fiction IV, was noted in a previous post on this blog, which concluded with some information provided by Victor Berch about Ms. Demarest’s parents, and her stepfather, actor William Demarest.  Thinking that that was not the end of the story, Victor continued his search into her past.  Here are the results of his investigation:


Some Background Notes on Phyllis Gordon Demarest
by Victor A. Berch
 

Thursday evening, January 4, 2007.

    Estelle Collette [note the spelling correction] appears to have been the stage name of Phyllis Gordon Demarest’s mother.  She was more than likely first married to Samuel Gordon (1871-1927), the English novelist. At what point in time and why they separated is unclear.  Nor is her real name known.

    In the 1920 U.S. Census, she is listed as Estelle Demarest, living with the actor Carl [William] Demarest as his wife. Living with them was William Demarest’s mother, Minnie [her actual name was Wilhelmina].  It is unclear at that point in time whether Estelle was actually married to Demarest.  Strangely enough, returning from a trip to England on board the S.S. Aquitania, which landed in New York on September 9, 1921, Estelle Collette, violinist, is among the manifest of aliens entering the U.S. As she was required to give the name and address of someone in the U.S. who could vouch for her, she gave the name of C. W. Demarest as her friend, while giving her home address as 16 Burgin Place, Long Island, an address different than that of William Demarest.

    In that same 1920 U.S. Census, Estelle lists her parents as being born in Russia; that is to say, somewhere in the then Russian Empire.  What her real name might have been still remains a mystery.  Samuel Gordon, born in Bavaria, came to England as a young boy.  His father, the Rev. Abraham Elias Gordon, was the leading cantor in the Great Synagogue of London.  I strongly doubt that Samuel Gordon would have married outside of his religion. This leads me to suspect that Estelle Collette was of the Jewish faith.

 

Friday morning, January 5, 2007.

    After rereading what I had written on Thursday, I was more convinced than ever that Phyllis Gordon Demarest’s mother, Estelle Collette, was indeed using that name as a stage name. That name kept popping up in the newspaper reviews of theatrical acts in which she appeared with William Demarest in the early 1920s.  But what was her real name?  The few theatrical reference books on stage/screen actors kept referring to her as the wife of William Demarest.  No birth or death dates were given for her. 

    Since it had been established that Phyllis Gordon Demarest was the daughter of the English novelist, Samuel Gordon, and the then Mrs. William Demarest, I felt that the answer might lie with Samuel Gordon.

 

Friday afternoon, January 5, 2007.

    I quickly found an obituary for Samuel Gordon in the New York Times .  He died in London on January 10, 1927.  There was no mention of a wife, but it did say that he was survived by a daughter.  Again, no mention of who she might be.  I then went to the London Times and it carried about the same news as the New York Times. No hint of a wife.

    It then occurred to me that, perhaps with a person of his stature in the Jewish community of England, an obituary could be found in the Jewish Chronicle of London.

    Sure enough, in the January 14, 1927 issue, there was an obituary.  It stated that Samuel Gordon was born September 10, 1871 in Buk, Bavaria [then part of the German Empire].  He had come to England at the age of 12, attending the City of London School and later Cambridge.   Further down, the obituary stated that in 1907 he had married Miss Esther Zichlin, “a violinist of great promise. There was one child of the marriage, a daughter.”  So!  At last, here was the real name of Estelle Collette.

    Who, then, was Esther Zichlin?  And when in 1907 did Samuel Gordon marry her?  I ran her name through the usual genealogical databases that I subscribe to and the only hit that I got was one that gave her marriage date as sometime in the April to June quarter of 1907.  Well, that certainly narrowed the time frame that I would need for examination of those issues of the Jewish Chronicle for a wedding announcement.

    Within a half an hour I did find an article announcing the marriage of Samuel Gordon and Esther Zichlin in the June 14, 1907 issue of the Jewish Chronicle.  They had been married on June 12th.  There were even  photographs of the bride and the groom.

    There was a short description of the wedding, but there was no mention of any relatives of the bride at the wedding.   She had been given away as a bride by Samuel Gordon’s father, the Rev. A. E. Gordon, and she was attended by the two-year old niece of the groom.  The best man was Samuel Gordon’s brother, Leo.

    Again I asked myself “Who was Esther Zichlin?” As Estelle Collette, she claimed to have been born in England.  As Estelle Demarest, the SSDI gave her birth and death dates as October 26, 1886 and November 19, 1968 and her birthplace was given as England.  Therefore, she should have appeared somewhere in either the 1891 or 1901 English Census.  Such was not the case.  Perhaps, when the 1911 English Census appears, we might learn Esther Gordon’s real nationality. (Unlike the US Census records, those wishing to access the English Census records are required to wait until 100 years have elapsed).

    I also ran the name Zichlin through other genealogical databases without any luck.  But there were quite a few Polish and Jewish last names for Zychlinski or Zychlinsky (a name meaning someone from the town of  Zychlin).  My conjecture about her early life is that she was born in Russia/Poland and sent to England as a young girl to advance her studies.

    There is one minor correction to be made in the the previous posting about Phyllis Gordon Demarest.  I’m not sure who is to blame for the mistranscription of PGD’s birth date.  She was born 3/31/1908, not 3/13/1908.  That date of birth was confirmed in the Jewish Chronicle of April 3, 1908.


Copyright © 2007 by Victor A. Berch.

 

Sun 7 Jan 2007

Obituary: A. I. BEZZERIDES (1908-2007).

Posted by Steve under Crime Fiction IV , Obituaries / Deaths Noted
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Quoting from the online edition of the Fresno Bee:

Albert Isaac “Buzz” Bezzerides, born in Ottoman Turkey to an Armenian mother and Greek father, grew up in Fresno in the same era as author William Saroyan. […] Mr. Bezzerides, who moved to Southern California as an adult, fell and suffered a broken hip late last year. He died New Year’s Day in a Los Angeles hospital. He was 98.

Here is his entry in Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin:

BEZZERIDES, A(lbert) I(saac) (1908- )

* * *Long Haul (Carrick, 1938, hc) Cape, 1938. Also published as: They Drive by Night. Dell, 1950 and Tough Guy. Lion, 1953. Film: Warner Bros., 1940, as They Drive by Night; released in Britain as The Road to Frisco (scw: Jerry Wald, Richard Macaulay; dir: Raoul Walsh).
* * _They Drive by Night (Dell, 1950, pb) See: Long Haul (Carrick 1938).
* * *Thieves Market (Scribner, 1949, hc) [San Francisco, CA] University of California (U.K.) pb, 1997. Film: TCF, 1949, as Thieves’ Highway (scw: A. I. Bezzerides; dir: Jules Dassin).
* * _Tough Guy (Lion, 1953, pb) See: Long Haul (Carrick 1938).

Dell pb

Only two books, but influential ones. “Like Saroyan,” the obituary in the Bee goes on to say, “Mr. Bezzerides wrote novels influenced by his life in the San Joaquin Valley during the early part of the last century.” Due to what novelist Anthony Neil Smith on his blog Crimedog One calls their inherent “trucker noir” quality, their impact on the world of cinema has been even greater.

Among the other credits you can find for him at www.imdb.com is
Kiss Me Deadly , a 1955 masterpiece of film noir starring Ralph Meeker as Mickey Spillane’s favorite PI, Mike Hammer, filmed in (as they say) glorious black-and-white. Mr. Bezzerides wrote the screenplay.

First line:   Mike Hammer: You almost wrecked my car! Well? Get in!

Meeker

In another genre, Mr. Bezzerides was also the creator of The Big Valley, the Barbara Stanwyck TV western series that ran for 112 episodes between 1965 and 1969. His roots in the San Joaquin Valley, where the Barkley ranch was located, had a good deal to do with that success of that series as well.

[Thanks to Vince Keenan on his blog for the original tip on Mr. Bezzerides’ passing.]

 

Sat 6 Jan 2007

CRIME FICTION IV: A Comprehensive Bibliography, 1749-2000, Revised,by Allen J. Hubin

Posted by Steve under Crime Fiction IV
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The book has not been published yet, at least not the revised edition. The manuscript was turned in sometime in middle of last year, but so far no date’s been set as to when it’s going to appear. When the Fourth Edition came out in 2003, the end date for the material covered was the year 2000. This is also when Al Hubin then began to look for someone to take over the task of editor and make sure that further editions would continue to appear. But when no takers were found, the decision was made that there would be no Fifth Edition.

Corrections and additions to the data in Crime Fiction IV continued to come in, however, and Al found himself unable to retire, as he’d planned, and the Revised Edition was the result. Rather than expand the bibliography chronologically, however, the cut-off date remained fixed at the year 2000.

Al was ready to retire again, but there was no end to the incoming flow of data, even with the closing date of 2000. He and I discussed this, and the upshot was he would continue to accumulate this addenda, but again only through 2000, and I would publish it on-line.

To that end, he has been sending me this addenda in parts, with eight such installments already on line at www.crimefictioniv.com. In his introduction to the addenda pages, Al fills in more of the details about the bibliography over the years, how it got started and how it grew.

As to my end, I’ve been taking advantage of the Internet, and as I go, I have been adding links and cover images not available in the printed editions. Links have been made to websites about the authors cited, and especially to www.imdb.com for every movie that Al has added as being based on a novel included in Crime Fiction IV.

Much of the Addenda included in parts 1 and 2 consists of connections to TV films, which had largely been neglected in early editions of CFIV. Using www.imdb.com, Leonard Mustazza’s The Literary Filmography and Alvin H. Marill’s Movies Made for Television as sources, many such TV movies have been identified and are now included.

Now in their enhanced form, and Internet-ready, as it were, Parts 1 and 2 have now been merged alphabetically in two sections, A through H and I through Z. I am now working on Part 3.

While the Addenda is hardly intended to replace the full Bibliography, my goal is also to have it stand on its own, as much as possible. To that end, I have been annotating some of the entries, especially when the authors are less well known. There is nothing I need to add to an entry of an author of the stature of Agatha Christie, for example. A link to one of the many websites about her should certainly suffice.

But for an author such as the following, the entry looks like this:

ALLERTON, MARK Pseudonym of William Ernest Cameron. As Allerton, the British author of ten works of crime fiction listed in the (Revised) CFIV, five indicated as marginal. Listed in The FictionMags Index are portions of three serialized novels from early American pulp magazines, only one of which is included in the (Revised) CFIV. The following are new entries.
The Devil’s Due. Skeffington, 1919
Her Hidden Husband. Thomson, 1927 [England]
-In a Gilded Cage. Skeffington, 1919
-The Master of Red House. Skeffington, 1919

Allerton

If possible, every entry might look like this, but it’s not, and they don’t, not yet. But if you’re even only mildly interested in the bibliography of crime fiction, please feel free to stop by, browse around, and see what is there.

 

Fri 5 Jan 2007

Hidden Clues and Mary Cicely Fair (1874-1955)

Posted by Steve under Authors , Crime Fiction IV
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Jamie Sturgeon and I saw the same book listed on eBay around the same time, and each of us sent the information hidden in the listing to Al Hubin, author of Crime Fiction IV: A Bibliography (Revised), within a day of each other.

Jamie was one step ahead of me, however, and he’d already been in touch with the seller, who told Jamie how he’d gotten his information about the author of the book, Donald Deane, about whom nothing has been known until now.

It turns out that there never was a “Donald Deane,” and that the three books attributed to him in CFIV were actually written by Mary Fair, a rather progressive lady living in the Eskdale lake district of England, nestled at the foot of that country’s highest mountains.

Following the link from her name to the website devoted to her, you’ll find her life’s accomplishments described in considerable detail. I’ll quote only a summary that was printed in a newspaper about her, shortly after her death:

“Archaeologist, welfare-worker, explorer, geneaolgist, naturalist, photographer, writer and lecturer … this familiar and friendly figure, sometimes half-tramp, sometimes professorial, trudging up the fells in foul or fair weather to deliver orange juice or medicinal oil out of her knapsack to some infant arrival in a remote farmhouse; or, at midnight, popping up disturbingly from behind a beck-side drystone wall, where she had been recording the seasonal note of an unusual owl. … we shall miss more than her erudition: we shall miss her friendly, twinkling eye, her crisp opinions- sometimes inventively ornamented and not infrequently critical- but particularly we shall miss her humanity: her readiness to give a knowledgeable helping hand wherever it was needed.”

Of course it is her connection to the world of crime and detective fiction that is of interest. I’ll add another quote below, if I may. (Sorry. I said only one quote, but I was wrong.)

Oh, and by the way, she wrote detective novels, under the name Donald Deane. She never told anybody, but another of her friends, Whitehaven librarian Daniel Hay, solved the mystery. Published by John Hamilton of London, they were The Fifth Tulip (1930); The Luck of Luce (1931) and Hidden Clues: A Lakeland story (1932). Most of the manuscript for a fourth novel, set in Scotland, also survives, written in cheap exercise books.

Here’s a cover scan of the third of these books, taken from the eBay listing that helped lead to this discovery:

Deane

Another entry, it almost goes without saying, if anyone’s keeping track, in the ongoing list of female mystery writers who kept their identities hidden by using initials in their byines or under the names of men.

 

Tue 2 Jan 2007

PHYLLIS GORDON DEMAREST

Posted by Steve under Authors , Crime Fiction IV
[3] Comments 

Taken from an email correspondence from Al Navis to Al Hubin, and the latter’s reply:

Al

[In reference to the following entry in CFIV:]

DEMAREST, PHYLLIS GORDON (?-1973)

* * * The House on Washington Place (Curtis, 1974, pb) [New York City, NY; 1860s]

I have found the following book:

Demarest, Phyllis Gordon

** What Happened on the Melisande?, Cassell, London, 1971, FIRST EDITION, precedes the 1972 Curtis Books First American Edition, released posthumously.

On the rear flap it states that she died in 1969, but gives no birth year.

Hope this helps.

Al Navis

—

Al,

Thanks for the Demarest information. A little digging convinces me that she was an American, the daughter of novelist Samuel Gordon and stepdaughter of actor William Demarest, and that she was born 3/13/1908 and died 12/1969. So I’ll add the new book to the bibliography (via the permanent addenda at www.crimefictioniv.com) and also add/correct her dates.

Best,

Al

—

Steve again:

A quote, probably from the front cover of Melisande, describes it thusly: “Not since The Poseidon Adventure has there been as gripping a tale of terror at sea.” The House on Washington Place is a scarce book, with only one copy now being offered for sale on the Internet, nor is it clear that it is the Curtis edition. Her other novels appear to be either historical fiction about the early US, romances, or a combination thereof.

Except for a possible few, the short stories I’ve found for her appear to be romances. Most of these were found using the online FictionMags Index.

* Late One Night (sl) Smart Love Stories Feb 1937
* Dance for Your Love (ss) Love Book Magazine May 1937
* Stubborn Brat, Part One, Smart Love Stories, June 1937
* House of Hearts (nv) Love Book Magazine Sep 1937
* Just Forget Me (nv) Love Fiction Monthly Apr 1938
* Double Heartbreak (ss) Love Book Magazine Sep 1938
* Jig Saw (ss) Liberty Magazine Nov 19 1938
* If We Must Part! (ss) Ten-Story Love Nov 1938
* Hearts Don’t Break (ss) Love Book Magazine Apr 1939
* Yesterday’s Ecstasy (nv) Love Book Magazine Apr 1940
* Rendezvous with Love (nv) Love Novelettes Jun 1940
* Hangover from Childhood (ss) All-Story Love Dec 1 1940
* Love Under Fire (nv) Love Short Stories Jun 1941
* Second Chance at Love (ss) Love Book Magazine Jun 1941
* Galahad of Broadway (ss) Love Book Magazine Jul 1941
* [unknown title] Sweetheart Stories, Dec 1942
* Tonight is Ours (sl) All-Story Love Jan 1943
* Tomorrow Is Enough (nv) Love Book Magazine Jun 1943
* Love Asks No Questions (ss) Love Book Magazine Aug 1944
* One Love for Two (ss) Love Book Magazine Nov 1944
* Bride for a Hero (nv) Love Book Magazine Jan 1945
* [unknown title] Love Book Magazine, October 1945
* Jonnie Heartbreak (nv) 15 Love Stories Magazine Feb 1950
* Love Letter (ss) Love Book Magazine Sep 1953
* Meet Your Authors. Love Book Magazine Sep 1953 [short biographical piece]

—

From Victor Berch, a few last morsels of information:

Steve:

About the only things I can add to Al’s note is some minutia. She came to the US with her father, Samuel, landing in NY on Dec. 10, 1913. By the 1920 Census, she was not living with her mother, Estelle, and stepfather (Carl) William Demarest. And the exact date of her death was December 22, 1969. Nothing in the LA Times regarding her death. Her mother’s maiden name was given as Colette, but I suspect that was a stage name, as she also was an actress, but probably a minor one.

Best,

Victor



UPDATE: Additional information uncovered by Victor on Phyllis Demarest’s background can be found here, on a later post.

 

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