Wed 24 Nov 2021
An Archived Mystery Review by Maryell Cleary: EDEN PHILLPOTTS – “Found Drowned”.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[8] Comments
EDEN PHILLPOTTS – “Found Drowned”. Hutchinson, UK, hardcover, 1931. Macmillan, US, hardcover, 1931.
When an itinerant musician is found dead in a cave near Daleham, the local police inspector and his friend, a retired doctor, differ about the case, The medical man takes it on himself to investigate what appears to be a simple case of suicide.
The search leads to the household of Sir Max Fordham, to a vanished dealer in antiques, and then to a serious question of identity. With a little help from Inspector Forbes, Dr. Meredith brings the case to a happy conclusion.
If we suspect that he has more good luck attending his footsteps than most detectives can boast, well, it’s his first case and perhaps he’s entitled to beginner’s luck!
Bibliographic Note: In spite of Maryell’s hint that either Dr. Meredith and/or Inspector Forbes may have had further cases to investigate, there is nothing known to me to suggest they ever did. [Steve]
November 24th, 2021 at 10:06 pm
Phillipotts THE RED REMAYNES should be historically as important to the development of the Golden Age as Bentley’s TRENT’S LAST CASE. In addition he was important in convincing a young woman named Agatha Christie to continue writing.
He wrote thrillers, fair play detection, SF, horror, critically acclaimed regional novels, and adventure and managed to still be working in the Fifties.
November 24th, 2021 at 10:56 pm
I’ve never read anything by him, but Maryell made this one sound interesting. This is going to sound strange, but the name Eden Phillpotts makes him sound like an author I might have been forced to read in high school.
November 25th, 2021 at 6:43 am
Steve, you may be thinking of Phil Edenpotts.
November 25th, 2021 at 11:57 pm
In high school I was much more likely to be reading about Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot.
November 25th, 2021 at 7:47 am
Another author long on my reading radar.
November 25th, 2021 at 8:06 am
During much of his lifetime, Eden Phillpotts was considered a prestigious mainstream writer. He wrote plays, poetry, nonfiction and the prestigious regional novels about Dartmoor that David mentions.
An impression: Phillpotts’s literary reputation has largely vanished today. There are probably a few scholars who still take an interest in him. But most university professors have never read Phillpotts and probably never will. Meanwhile the literary reputations of Hemingway and Faulkner seem eternal.
November 25th, 2021 at 10:45 pm
A few Phillipotts works struggle to survive. RED REMAYNES is not too hard to find and worth reading as a story and for its historical import ever since Dover revived it years ago and several of his science fiction novels are easily found as e-books.
I expect no major revival of his work, it is too dated for that, but there are charms there too, books a few might enjoy from his thrillers as Harrington Hext to his detective stories. At least one of his lost world novels, THE GOLDEN FETICH is in print from Armchair Library.
November 25th, 2021 at 11:59 pm
Mike and David, Thanks for the comments on Phillpotts and the unlikelihood of a revival of his work. I can find nothing to disagree with either of you.