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BOOKSHELF_OF_JOHN_DICKSON_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historical references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.)
"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
against modern lit (realism,
psychological fiction,
political 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."
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