Mon 30 Dec 2013
A Ballade of Detection
Savants there be who joy to read
Of lofty themes in words that glow;
Others prefer the poet’s screed
Where liquid numbers softly flow.
Others in Balzac interest show,
Or by Dumas are much impressed;
Some seek grim novels of woe–
I like Detective Stories best
To my mind nothing can exceed
The tales of Edgar Allan Poe;
Of Anna Katharine Green I’ve need,
Du Boisgobey, Gaboriau;
I’ve Conan Doyle’s works all a-row
And Ottolengui and the rest;
How other books seem tame and slow!
I like Detective Stories best.
The dim, elusive clues mislead.
Hiding the mystery below;
To fearful pitch my mind is keyed,
Opinion shuttles to and fro!
Successive shocks I undergo
Ere the solution may be guessed;
Arguments and discussions grow–
I like Detective Stories best.
ENVOY:
Sherlock, thy subtle powers I know,
Spirit , incarnate quest,
To thee the laurel wreath I throw—
I like Detective Stories best.
— Carolyn Wells
NOTE: Reprinted from The Bookman, March 1902. Thanks to Victor Berch for unearthing this poem and sending it along to be posted here.
December 30th, 2013 at 7:10 pm
This has been preserved in a book edited and annotated by S. E. Dahlinger and Leslie S. Klinger, _Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle & The Bookman_, published in 2010 by Gasogene Books of Indianapolis. It is subtitled “Pastiches, Parodies, Letters, Columns and Commentary from America’s ‘Magazine of Literature and Life’ (1895-1933)”
December 30th, 2013 at 10:50 pm
Randy
I think everything to be known in the world of mystery fiction, whether books, movies, TV shows and even Old Time Radio, is alreday known by the cumulative readership of this blog. Thank you!
I don’t know, though. I wonder if I am the only one who had never heard of Fortuné du Boisgobey before. I had to look him up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortun%C3%A9_du_Boisgobey
— Steve
December 31st, 2013 at 4:50 am
Some from notes from my web site on two Boisgobey books:
http://mikegrost.com/gaboriau.htm#Boisgobey
Thanks for the Wells poem.
It was completely new to me.
December 31st, 2013 at 10:58 am
“A Ballade of Detection” resurfaced on The Golden Age of Detection Yahoo Group just over a year ago:
http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/GAdetection/conversations/messages/30036
December 31st, 2013 at 11:46 am
Mike Grost, comment #3
I like this quote from your coverage of Boisgobey:
“Boisgobey’s novel shows a casual tone not found in Gaboriau. One always feels in Gaboriau that he is conscious of being a pioneer in the mystery genre, and that he is carefully feeling his way, experimenting with different aspects of the genre. By contrast, Boisgobey’s book seems written for readers for whom the mystery is a routine, familiar event. It suggests that by the time it was published, that France was flooded with mystery novels, very similar in many ways to 20th Century detective stories. These are works with which I, and most other modern readers, are unfortunately not familiar.”
December 31st, 2013 at 11:47 am
Mike Tooney, comment #4
I might have known you’d come across Wells’ poem before!
December 31st, 2013 at 6:22 pm
Boisgobey borrowed a good deal, as many writers did in that period, about equally between Gaboriau and Eugene Sue (particularly THE MYSTERIES OF PARIS), but then just about every feullitonist borrowed from MYSTERIES, which outsold Dumas COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO in serialization. If I remember right Boisgobey wrote at least one book continuing Lecoq’s mentor as a sleuth. He was clearly familiar with the form, second generation so to speak.
By the time Boisgobey took up the genre Sue, Paul Feval pere, Gaboriau, and even Dumas had made the French reading audience familiar with the form. My own view of Boisgobey has always been of a follower and not a pioneer in the form, though he seems to have sold rather well, and was known in English better than Feval at least.
RE Wells,I can honestly say as far as I’m concerned this and her book on the genre are the best things she ever did, certainly superior to any of her fiction.
January 3rd, 2014 at 6:02 am
She gets big points from me for also being the first BOTY anthologist in crime fiction, unless I’ve overlooked a predecessor…