Thomas W. Hanshew (1857 – 1914) was an American writer and male actor. He was born in Brooklyn, New York (state).

Life and career

Hanshew began a career as an actor when only 16 years old, playing minor parts with Ellen Terry's company. Subsequently he played important roles with

Clara Morris Clara Morris (1846-9 – November 20, 1925) was an American actress. Early life Actress Clara Morris was born in Toronto, the eldest child of a bigamous marriage. Sources disagree on the year of her birth, writing it as any of the years from 18 ...

and

Adelaide Neilson Lilian Adelaide Neilson (3 March 184815 August 1880), born Elizabeth Ann Brown, was a British stage actress. Early life Neilson was the daughter of a strolling actress, Anne Brown, and was born, out of wedlock, at 35 St Peters Square Leeds ...

. Later he was associated with a publishing house in London, where he resided at the end of his life. He used, among others, the

pen name A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen na ...

"Charlotte May Kingsley," and wrote more than 150 novels, some of which were co-authored with his wife, Mary E. Hanshew. Hanshew's best-known character was the consulting detective "Hamilton Cleek" (the assumed name of the ''King of Maurevania''),, a reformed thief now working for law enforcement. Cleek is known as "the man of the forty faces" for his incredible skill at disguise. The main character of dozens of short stories that began to be published during 1910 and were subsequently collected in a series of books, Cleek is based in Clarges Street, London, where he is consulted continually by Inspector Narkom of

Scotland Yard Scotland Yard (officially New Scotland Yard) is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, the territorial police force responsible for policing Greater London's 32 boroughs, but not the City of London, the square mile that forms London's ...

Bibliography

(this list is incomplete) * ''Dark Corners of New York'' (1888) * ''My Maid'' (1888) as "Charlotte May Kingsley"

Edison’s ''The Chronicles of Cleek'' series

Ben F. Wilson appeared as Detective Hamilton Cleek in a series of silent film shorts: * The Heritage of Hamilton Cleek (1914) * The Mystery of the Sealed Art Gallery (1914) * The Mystery of the Glass Tubes (1914) * The Mystery of the Octagonal Room (1914) * The Mystery of the Lost Stradivarius (1914) * The Mystery of the Fadeless Tints (1914) * The Mystery of the Amsterdam Diamonds (1914) * The Mystery of the Silver Snare (1914) * The Mystery of the Laughing Death (1914) * The Mystery of the Ladder of Light (1914) * The Mystery of the Talking Wire (1914) * The Mystery of the Dover Express (1913) * The Vanishing Cracksman (1913)

Reception

Even by the standards of the adventure fiction of the era, Hamilton Cleek is a notably unrealistic character, not only for his ability to impersonate anyone (including speaking multiple foreign languages perfectly) but for his physical derring-do and his frequent melodramatic encounters with Margot, "Queen of the Apaches", and her partner-in-crime Merode.

References

External links

;Thomas W. Hanshew * under that name, and 1 as Charlotte May Kingsley, linked * * ;Mary E. Hanshew * * * ;Thomas and Mary Hanshew * 1857 births 1914 deaths 20th-century American novelists American male stage actors Writers from Brooklyn Novelists from New York City American male novelists 20th-century American male writers {{US-novelist-1850s-stub