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BOOKSHELF_OF_CARR
"Hag's Nook" (1931) mentions:
Tom Nash, "Pierce Pennilesse" (1595), p.29
George Gascoigne, "A delicate Diet for
dainte mouthed Dronkardes, wherein the
fowle Abuse of common carowsing and
quaffing with hartie Draughtes is
honestlie admonished" (1576), p.29
"Have you ever seen 'Sweeney Todd, the
Demon Barber of Fleet Street'? You should.
It was one of the original thriller plays,
well known in the early eighteen-hundreds [...]"
(Gideon Fell speaking) p. 86
John Baptist Porta's "De Furitivis Literarum Notis" (1563),
"one of the first books of cipher-writing", p. 140
"Plutarch and Gellius mention secret methods of
correspondence", p. 141
Caesar's "quarta elementorus littera", p. 141
Edgar Wallace p.14 (as a commonly read author)
"an American film called 'Way Down East'"
p. 66
(A 1920 silent by D.W. Griffith
with Lillian Gish. From a play by
Lottie Blair Parker in the late 1800s.)
From "In Spite of Thunder" (1960):
Murrell's "What to Do in Cases of Poisoning", 15th edition,
(London; H. K. Lewis, 1944)
Poisons and Poisoners, by C. J. S. THompson, M.B.E.
(London; Harold Shayler, 1931)
"Old Fenwick'd invented a Latin cross-word puzzle, and
Lendin inisisted on arguin' about it. The answer was
'Enchiridio.' O' course it was. Six across, ten-letter
word meanin' collection of magical prayers invented by
Pope Leo III and given to Charles the Great in 800..."
Sir Henry Merrivale in
"The Red Widow Murders" by Carter Dickson (1935)
Hm... make a note
of that:
enchiridio.com?
"My hobby ... is investigating ancient superstitions
High and low magic: occultism, necromancy, divinations,
all the mumbo-jumbo of literally raising the devil ...
I have the usual lot, like Horst and Ennemoser and
Sibley; and a truck-load of odd stuff I've picked up,
even what purports to be a translation of the _Great
Grimoire_."
Guy Brixham in
"The Red Widow Murders" by Carter Dickson (1935)
The Bride of Newgate (1950), set in 1815:
"Guy Mannering" by Sir Walter Scott (1815)
Tom Moore, a poet (with some sappy lines quoted)
"I thought to myself: what would Shakespere have said?
Or Kit Marlowe? Or rare Ben Jonson? Or manly Wycherley?
Or even those authors, of our own day, who have given us
_Marmion_ and _Childe Harold_ ..." p.209
Mr. Raleigh (a man with a theatrical background), in
"The Bride of Newgate" (1950), set in 1815
by John Dickson Carr
(And there are *many*
historical references
in the appendix of that
one.)
"It Walks By Night" (1930)
A very early Carr novel (the first of very few
about the French detective Bencolin, before Carr
went off to specialize in fat Englishmen).
In addition to a prominent role played by "Alice
in Wonderland" and Poe's "Cask of Amontillado",
there are some long lists of references from the
literatures of sadism and murder and so on -- the
young Carr was trying to impress with his
erudition:
" ... since a child ... I have been reading
along one line. Scherr, Fridreich, Dessoir,
on the licence of the Middle Ages; Suetonius,
Friedlander on what they call the 'depravity'
of Rome (and you know Wiedemeister's _Der
Casarenwahsinn_?); particularly the Borgia
chronicles, the Marquis de Sade; Upminsing's
_La Vie de Gilles de Rais_--'"
"I remember that he had a fondness for the imaginative
writers: Baudelaire, De Quincey, Poe ... "
Ch. I "The Patron of Gravediggers", p.21, Zebra pbk,
Dr. Grafenstein relating the words of the
psychotic killer, Laurent
"Famous murders! The table piled high with
roses put the idea into Vautrelle's mind of
Landru decorating the room for his sweetheart;
we talked of Troppmannn; of Basson, Vacher,
Crippern, and Spring-heel Jack; of Major
Amrstrong with his hypodermic needles and mith
with his tin baths; of Durrant, Haarmann, and
la Pommerais; of Cream, Thurtell, and Hunt; of
Hoche and Wainright the poisoners, and the
demure Constance Kent. "
Ch. VIII, "'We talked of Poe'", p 111, Zebra pbk
The lawyer Kilard speaking.
Gaston Leroux is mentioned on p 150 as a
well-known mystery writer. (Chapter 11, "Swordplay")
"Books: Verlaine, Lamartine -- her favorite
was _La Crucifixe_. We disputed over the
Rossetti and Swinburne translations of Villon,
and she was passionate in her defence of all
Rossetti's work ... "
Ch. XII, "A Hand is Motionless Beneath
the Cypress" p.162, Zebra pbk
Jeff Marle, relating a conversation with
Sharon Grey.
"The characters spoke in a dialogue like
nothing on heaven or earth, but behind it
was an imperially purple imagination, the
"tiger's blood and honey" of Barbey
D'Aurevilly, and a kind of grotesque
smiling detachment, like a gargoyle on a
tower."
Ch. XIII, "Death at Versailles", p. 176, Zebra pbk
Jeff Marle describing a play by the
character Vautrelle.
"The Lost Gallows" (1931)
by John Dickson Carr
Chapter 7 "A Hand Knocks by Night", p.76
The detective Bencolin is reading
a detective novel (to the
consternation of his watson):
"The Murders at Whispering House" Thereafter, there's a long,
by J.J. Ackroyd. stilted lecture disguised as
dialog, where Bencolin rails
(A fictional book?) against modern lit (realism,
psychological fiction,
politically correct war
stories...).
Bencolin's pose of being
bored by reality is oddly
discordant, to my ear.
Carr had fallen into the
trap of celebrating the
image of the continental
intellectual, even as he
was trying to elevate a
common art...
" ... I was going to ask you whether Depping when
you knew him, ever dabbled in pseudo-occultism of
this kind. I presumed he did; he had several
shelves of books dealing with the more rarified (rarified -- not
forms -- people like Wirth, and Ely Star, and rarefied -- is
Barlet, and Papus. ... " "sic" for the
1962 Collier
Gideon Fell in paperback)
"The Eight of Swords" (1934), p. 143-144,
by John Dickson Carr
"Death-Watch" (1935):
"Like a cross between Jeeves
and Soames Forsyte" -- p. 28 (Soames Forsyte?)
Hogarth's "Rake's Progress"
-- p. 29
"... a night-clock with the lamp always
kept burning. It purports to be early sevententh
century, the work of Jehan Shermite, and is probably
the same design as the one Pepys describes as being in
Queen Catherine's room in 1664." -- p. 137
"The Three Coffins" (1935):
"Gabriel Dobrentei 'Yorick és Eliza levelei', two volumes.
'Shakspere Minden Munkdi', nine volumes in different editions."
p.59
"... They were English books translated into Magyar. ..."
p.152
In a discussion of stage magic, a footnote reads:
"See the admirable and startling book by Mr. J. C. Cannell"
p.188
"... Gaston Leroux's _The Mystery of the Yellow Room_ -- the
best detective tale ever written."
"The Crooked Hinge" (1938);
p. 52
"Then kindly tell me which of those
books you liked best, and which made
the most impression on you."
"With pleasure," answered the claimant,
casting up his eyes. "all of Sherlock
Holmes. All of Poe. _The Cloister and "The Cloister and
the Hearth_. _The Count of Monte The Hearth" (1861)
Cristo_. _Kidnapped_. _A Tale of Two by Charles Reade
Cities_. All ghost stories. All
stories dealing with pirates, murders, Also mentioned
ruined castles, or --" by Sir H.M.
"... And the books you intensely disliked?"
"Every deadly line of Jane Austen and
George Eliot. All sniveling school-
stories about 'the honour of the school'
and so on. All 'useful' books teling you
how to make mechanical things or run
them. All animal-stories. I may add
that these, in general, are still my
views."
"The Dead Man's Knock" (1958)
One of the main background elements in this book
is a (I presume fictional) set of letters from Suposedly written on
Wilkie Collins to Charles Dickens, discussing a "December 14th, 1867"
"locked room" murder mystery that Collins had
planned to write: "The Dead Man's Knock".
Other details are
Carr squeezes in every tidbit found inside the flyleaf
about Wilkie Collins that he can of a book from Collins
manage (he calls him "our library: "Ghost Stories
fan-whiskered Victorian friend" and Tales of Mystery"
at one point, p. 62). (Dublin, 1851) by Sheridan
Le Fanu
The titles of several Collins
books are featured:
"Moonstone" (1868)
"The Lady in White"
"Armadale"
"I don't have to tell you, Dr. Kent, that I own a
uniform edition of the works of Wilkie Collins,
published by Chatto & Windus in the early
nineteen hundreds, from his first book in 1852 to
his last posthumously in 1890." -- p. 43
"Wilkie Collins, admittedly,
was never a major literary
figure. But you could call him
the wily serpent, the
plot-master, whose ingenuity
even Dickens envied. ... He
was an amiable Bohemian, who
hated the stuffiness of life "A popular account, Kate Dickens
and kept a mistress openly in Perugini's reminiscences to Gladys
his house. " -- p. 53 Storey, gives a picture of 'Dear
Wilkie' and his girl friend by someone
who knew them." -- p. 81
About "Moonstone":
"It was the first fair-play detective novel, with all
the clues given. He knew it was; he wrote to his
American publishers and said he had some effects
never used before in fiction. He was so enthusiastic
that he planned another such, this time about a death
in a locked room, which should look like suicide but
turn out to be a murder. ... He planned the new
novel for '69 ... He out lined the plot in some
letters to Dickens, just as he did with _The
Moonstone_." -- p. 51, 52
About "The Woman in White":
"All about a morbidy loony woman
named Anne Catherick." -- p. 62
About "Armadale":
"it's not Collins's [sic] best, or even third- or
fourth-best novel. But it may amuse you if you
like elaborate intrigue." -- p. 24
The book is subdivided into four chapters, with
quasi-appropriate quotations from:
"Aglaura" by Sir John Suckling
"Hieroglyphics" by Arthur Machen
Proverbs 2:16, 18
"Ingoldsby Legends" by R.H.Barham
"But there is another interest of a much
higher kind, and that is the sensational."
-- Arthur Machen, Hieroglyphics
There's a mention of Poe's _Purloined Letter_
(but not the _Rue Morgue_, which by rights
Carr should footnote in every one of his novels).
There is a passing, and not entirely
complimentary, reference to Henry James... WELL-QUALIFIED
Here Carr develops a character by telling us about
her (odious) taste in mystery novels:
"But *I* only like what Toby calls the slap-'em-down
kind, where they're always shooting at each other or
beating up the hero. I've tried to like the other
kind, because Toby does. And I can't. When they try
to prove how you can be in two places at once, or
walk over sand without leaving a footprint, I don't
understand it and I don't believe it." -- p.78
The plot revolves around a Scarlet Woman who likes
to play it up... her house is decorated with paintings
of witches:
Goya: "a large black-and-white drawing, by Goya, of a Witches' Sabbath"
Antoine Wiertz -- "The Young Witch": "the young woman in the picture
peering sideways past black hair"
And perhaps most interesting:
"Round the walls, incogruous against satiny Chippendale chairs,
ran a series of framed black-and-white cartoons: all sizes, the
originals of famous newspaper cartoonists' most savage brilliance
in satire. Public figures, men and women, social and political,
danced in a frieze of outlandish buffoons." -- p. 40
From "The Sleeping Sphinx" (1947):
"Oddities" by Lieutenant Commander Rupert
T. Gould, R.N. (London, Philip Allan & Co.
Ltd., 1928, pp. 33-78)
From "Below Suspicion" (1949):
Footnotes, bottom of page 175, chap 17
(these are recommended by Dr. Fell to Butler):
Reginald Scot, "The Discouerie of Witchcraft" (3rd ed, 1665,
the first was 1584)
Joseph Glanvil, "Saducismus Triumphatus" (London 1681)
C. W. Oliver "An Analysis of Magic and Witchcraft" (Rider & Co, 1928)
C. L'Estrange Ewen, "Witchraft and Demonianism" (Heath Cranton, 1933)
Margaret Alice Murray, "The Witch-Cult in Western Europe"
Montague Summers, "The History of Witchcraft and Demonology"
(Kegan Paul, 1926)
Wallace Notesetin, "A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718"
(Washington, 1911)
Another reference, p.137 to a different Murray book:
Margaret Alice Murray, "The God of the Witches"
(Sampson Low, Marston & Co.), pp. 71-76
Story told on p. 136-7, about the founding of
the order of the garter by Edward the III,
with the oath:
"Honi soit qui mal y pense"
("evil to whom evil thinks").
"The Witch of the Low Tide" (1961)
Chapter head quotations are all from Baedeker's
"A Guide to London and its Environs for 1908"
The story itself takes place in July of 2007,
which is pinned down by this historical minutiae
on page 7:
"Just under a week ago, on Saturday the 8th of June,
a new theatrical hit opened at Daly's ... a musical
comedy called _The Merry Widow_ ..."
Also:
"Such first-nights were not uncommon: the biggest
success of the previous year, Gerald Du Maurier in
_Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman_, had opened on
a Saturday."
Throughout the story, various characters make
frequent reference to:
_The Mystery of the Yellow Room_ by Gaston Leroux
On p. 94
A book published "this year" by an American,
supernatural stories with natural explanations at the end:
_The Thinking Machine_ by Jacques Frutelle
p. 9
Sherlock Holmes, L.T. Meade, Robert Eustace
p. 120
"Marion lifted one shoulder like Stella Campbell
in _The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith_."
p. 150
"... I admit to being a good deal of a fraud.
Most of my ideas in life have come out of
books, out of E. F. Benson, and _The Dolly
Dialogues_ and all the rest of the airy
persiflage we're supposed to keep up."
Carter Dickson,
"He Wouldn't Kill Patience" (1943)
on p.164, a magician's library:
"From the shrunken, blackened,
_Hocus-Pocus Junior,
The Anatomy of Ledgerdemain_ (1623)
to the most modern treatise by
Goldston or Cannell, the crowded
shelves stood round with their
curious secrets."
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