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Gervase Fen
Gervase Fen is a fictional amateur detective and Oxford Professor of English Language and Literature created by Edmund Crispin. Fen appears in nine novels and two books of short stories published between 1944 and 1979. Fen is an unconventional detective who is often faced with a locked room mystery to solve. Character Fen is described as lanky, cheerful and ruddy with a clean shaven face and hair which is always plastered down with water, but with stray hairs spiking from his crown. He is middle-aged, married, has children, and is often noted as wearing an extraordinary hat. Fen is alternately "charming, frivolous, brilliant and badly behaved" and in the stories acts on his own as an amateur detective as well as frequently assisting the police with their investigations. Fen often exhibits his surprise or shock by quoting ''Alice in Wonderland'' – "Oh my fur and whiskers!". Fen makes his first appearance in ''The Case of the Gilded Fly'' and is introduced as wishing to be invo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Case Of The Gilded Fly
''The Case of the Gilded Fly'' is a locked-room mystery by the English author Edmund Crispin (Bruce Montgomery), written while Crispin was an undergraduate at University of Oxford, Oxford and first published in the UK in 1944. It was published in the US a year later under the title ''Obsequies at Oxford''. Crispin's debut novel, the book contains the first appearance of eccentric amateur detective Gervase Fen, Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford, who went on to appear in all nine of Crispin's novels as well as most of the short stories. The book abounds in literary allusions ranging from classical antiquity to the mid-20th century. Title The novel's title references William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's ''King Lear'': "the small gilded fly does lecher in my sight". Plot The novel is set in Oxford in October 1940. Up-and-coming playwright Robert Warner has chosen a local repertory theatre for the première of his new play and has arrived with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Long Divorce
''The Long Divorce'' is a 1951 detective novel by the British writer Edmund Crispin, the eighth in his series featuring the Oxford professor and amateur detective Gervase Fen. It was the penultimate novel in the series, with a gap or more than twenty five years before the next entry '' The Glimpses of the Moon'', although a collection of short stories '' Beware of the Trains'' was published in 1953. The novel features many traits of a Golden Age mystery, set in a small, wealthy English village. The title doesn't refer to a marriage but is a quote from Shakespeare's ''Henry VIII'' "the long divorce of steel".Bargainnier77-78 It was published in the United States by Dodd, Mead in 1951 under the same title, and a year later as ''A Noose for Her''. Synopsis A series of poison pen letters have disrupted the calm of the picturesque English village of Cotton Abbas. Amongst those receiving the messages are an attractive, young female doctor and a bluff Yorkshire businessman whose teenage ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fictional Male Detectives
Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying individuals, events, or places that are imaginary, or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent with history, fact, or plausibility. In a traditional narrow sense, "fiction" refers to written narratives in prose often referring specifically to novels, novellas, and short stories. More broadly, however, fiction encompasses imaginary narratives expressed in any medium, including not just writings but also live theatrical performances, films, television programs, radio dramas, comics, role-playing games, and video games. Definition Typically, the fictionality of a work is publicly marketed and so the audience expects the work to deviate in some ways from the real world rather than presenting, for instance, only factually accurate portrayals or characters who are actual people. Because fiction is generally understood to not fully adhere to the real world, the themes and context of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fictional Amateur Detectives
Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying individuals, events, or places that are imaginary, or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent with history, fact, or plausibility. In a traditional narrow sense, "fiction" refers to written narratives in prose often referring specifically to novels, novellas, and short stories. More broadly, however, fiction encompasses imaginary narratives expressed in any medium, including not just writings but also live theatrical performances, films, television programs, radio dramas, comics, role-playing games, and video games. Definition Typically, the fictionality of a work is publicly marketed and so the audience expects the work to deviate in some ways from the real world rather than presenting, for instance, only factually accurate portrayals or characters who are actual people. Because fiction is generally understood to not fully adhere to the real world, the themes and context of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Characters In British Novels
Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to Theophrastus Music * ''Characters'' (John Abercrombie album), 1977 * ''Character'' (Dark Tranquillity album), 2005 * ''Character'' (Julia Kent album), 2013 * ''Character'' (Rachael Sage album), 2020 * ''Characters'' (Stevie Wonder album), 1987 Types of entity * Character (arts), an agent within a work of art, including literature, drama, cinema, opera, etc. * Character sketch or character, a literary description of a character type * Game character (other), various types of characters in a video game or role playing game ** Player character, as above but who is controlled or whose actions are directly chosen by a player ** Non-player character, as above but not player-controlled, frequently abbreviated as NPC Other uses in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Book Series Introduced In 1944
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arrangement is ''codex'' (plural, ''codices''). In the history of hand-held physical supports for extended written compositions or records, the codex replaces its predecessor, the scroll. A single sheet in a codex is a leaf and each side of a leaf is a page. As an intellectual object, a book is prototypically a composition of such great length that it takes a considerable investment of time to compose and still considered as an investment of time to read. In a restricted sense, a book is a self-sufficient section or part of a longer composition, a usage reflecting that, in antiquity, long works had to be written on several scrolls and each scroll had to be identified by the book it contained. Each part of Aristotle's ''Physics'' is called a bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Wilby
James Jonathon Wilby (born 20 February 1958) is an English actor. Early life and education Wilby was born in Rangoon, Burma to a corporate executive father. He was educated at Terrington Hall School, North Yorkshire and Sedbergh School in Cumbria (prior to 1974 in West Riding of Yorkshire), and from there went on to study for a degree in Mathematics at Grey College, University of Durham, and then at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Career Wilby's first appearance on screen was in the Oxford Film Company 1982 production '' Privileged'' alongside Hugh Grant. He is known to an international audience for roles in ''Maurice'' (1987), for which he received Venice Film Festival's Best Actor award with co-star Hugh Grant. He then starred in ''A Handful of Dust'' (1988), for which he won the Bari Film Festival Best Actor award. Then came ''A Tale of Two Cities'' (1989), ''Howards End'' (1992), the critically acclaimed ''Regeneration'' (1997), Ismail Merchant's ''Cotton Mary'' (1999 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tony Tanner
Tony Tanner (27 July 1932 – 8 September 2020) was a British stage, film and television actor and a Tony-nominated theatre director and choreographer. Career Training and early career Tanner graduated from the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art with the Douglas Cup, awarded him by Margaret Rutherford. He spent five years in northern repertory companies, playing everything from Saint Peter to the front end of a cow in a British pantomime. Acting career Intimate revues in West End of London brought Tanner some notoriety, including an appearance in a sketch by then-unknown Harold Pinter. Later Tanner played the patsy in '' The Birthday Party,'' opposite Pinter himself, by this time known to everybody. In 1964, he starred in '' Strictly for the Birds''. He made numerous appearances in plays and variety shows on British television, including a stint as Puck in ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'', opposite Benny Hill’s ''Bottom''. All of this culminated in the role of Littlechap ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jonathan Levi
Jonathan Levi (born 1955, in New York City) is an American writer and producer. Biography Following graduation from Yale University in 1977, Levi received a Mellon Fellowship to study at Clare College, Cambridge, Clare College, Cambridge University, where he co‑founded the literary magazine ''Granta'' with Bill Buford and Pete de Bolla and served as U.S. Editor through 1987. After leaving ''Granta'', Levi created the program "New Opera for New Ears" for the Metropolitan Opera Guild, producing Carly Simon's opera, ''Romulus Hunt: A Family Opera, Romulus Hunt'' (1991), directed by Francesca Zambello at the Metropolitan Opera Guild and the Kennedy Center. Levi’s 1992, ''A Guide for the Perplexed'' is a novel in the form of a traveler’s guide in the form of letters to a mysterious, seemingly ubiquitous travel agent named Benjamin from two stranded but eventually satisfied customers, and was called "a fable of fantastical lushness, reminiscent of the best fairy tales" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Wordsworth
Richard Curwen Wordsworth (19 January 1915 – 21 November 1993) was an English character actor. He was the great-great-grandson of the poet William Wordsworth. As a young man he followed in the footsteps of his clergyman father, reading Divinity at Cambridge University. But he quickly found acting more to his taste and, after performing at the Cambridge Footlights, he decided to study drama at the Embassy School of Acting in London. This proved an excellent choice. He quickly developed a talent for character acting which sustained him and his family through a long and richly varied career. In classical theatre he worked with John Gielgud, Donald Wolfit, Anthony Quayle and Richard Burton. After successful Shakespearian seasons at the Old Vic and Stratford-upon-Avon, he starred in the musical '' Lock Up Your Daughters'' which launched the Mermaid Theatre in London. He also found success as Captain Hook in several Christmas productions of ''Peter Pan''. Later he would tour A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Glimpses Of The Moon (Crispin Novel)
''The Glimpses of the Moon'' is a 1977 detective novel by the British writer Edmund Crispin. It was the ninth and last novel in his series featuring Gervase Fen, an Oxford professor and amateur detective. Written from the 1960s onwards on publication it was the first novel in the series to be released since ''The Long Divorce'' in 1951. The author died the following year and in 1979 a final work ''Fen Country'', a collection of short stories featuring the detective, was publish posthumously.Reilly p.394-95 The title is taken from a line from Shakespeare's ''Hamlet''. It is set in the village of Aller in rural Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is .... References Bibliography * Bargainnier, Earl F. ''Comic Crime''. Popular Press, 1987. * Reilly, John M. ''Twentiet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beware Of The Trains
''Beware of the Trains'' is a collection of detective short stories by the British writer Edmund Crispin published in 1953. It contains sixteen stories including ''Beware of the Trains'' which gave its title to the collection. They all feature Crispin's amateur detective and Oxford professor Gervase Fen, an eccentric with a genius for solving complex cases. A number also featured Detective Inspector Humbleby of Scotland Yard who also appears in two of the novels in the Fen series. Apart from one they had all previously appeared in the ''Evening Standard The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format. In October 2009, after be ...'' newspaper. It was the last work featuring Fen for many years, until Crispin returned to the character for the 1977 novel '' The Glimpses of the Moon''.Reilly p.395 Stories * ''Be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
