Joseph Jefferson Farjeon (4 June 1883 – 6 June 1955) was an English crime and mystery novelist, playwright and screenwriter. His father, brother and sister also developed successful careers in the literary world. His "Ben" novels were reissued in 2015 and 2016.

Family

Born in Hampstead,

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, Farjeon was the grandson of the American actor Joseph Jefferson, after whom he was named.In Edwards's Introduction to the 2014 reissue of ''Mystery in White. A Christmas Crime Storey'' (London: British Library, 937. His parents were Jefferson's daughter Maggie (1853–1935) and Benjamin Farjeon (1838–1903), a Victorian novelist, who was born in

Whitechapel Whitechapel is a district in East London and the future administrative centre of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is a part of the East End of London, east of Charing Cross. Part of the historic county of Middlesex, the area formed ...

to an impoverished immigrant family and travelled widely before returning to England in 1868. Joseph Jefferson Farjeon's brothers were

Herbert Herbert may refer to: People Individuals * Herbert (musician), a pseudonym of Matthew Herbert Name * Herbert (given name) * Herbert (surname) Places Antarctica * Herbert Mountains, Coats Land * Herbert Sound, Graham Land Australia * Herbert ...

, a dramatist and scholar, and

Harry Harry may refer to: TV shows * ''Harry'' (American TV series), a 1987 American comedy series starring Alan Arkin * ''Harry'' (British TV series), a 1993 BBC drama that ran for two seasons * ''Harry'' (talk show), a 2016 American daytime talk show ...

, who became a composer. His sister

Eleanor Eleanor () is a feminine given name, originally from an Old French adaptation of the Old Provençal name ''Aliénor''. It is the name of a number of women of royalty and nobility in western Europe during the High Middle Ages. The name was introd ...

became a children's author. His daughter

Joan Jefferson Farjeon Joan Jefferson Farjeon (26 May 1913 – 8 August 2006) was an English scenographer and costume designer. Born into a literary family, she began illustrating in 1939 and began working as a sceneographer and costume designer in 1941, working in the ...

(1913–2006) was a theatre set designer.

Career: "creepy skill"

Farjeon worked for ten years for

Amalgamated Press The Amalgamated Press (AP) was a British newspaper and magazine publishing company founded by journalist and entrepreneur Alfred Harmsworth (1865–1922) in 1901, gathering his many publishing ventures together under one banner. At one point the ...

in London before going freelance, working nine hours a day at his writing desk. One of Farjeon's best known works was a 1925 play, '' Number 17'', which was adapted into several films, including ''

Number Seventeen ''Number Seventeen'' is a 1932 comedy thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring John Stuart, Anne Grey and Leon M. Lion. The film, which is based on the 1925 burlesque stage play '' Number Seventeen'' written by Joseph Jeffers ...

'' (1932) directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and joined the UK Penguin Crime series as a novel in 1939. He also wrote the screenplay for

Michael Powell Michael Latham Powell (30 September 1905 – 19 February 1990) was an English filmmaker, celebrated for his partnership with Emeric Pressburger. Through their production company The Archers, they together wrote, produced and directed a seri ...

's ''

My Friend the King ''My Friend the King'' is a 1932 British comedy film, directed by Michael Powell and starring Jerry Verno. The film was a follow-up to '' Two Crowded Hours'', Powell's unexpectedly popular directorial debut of the previous year, with comedian ...

'' (1932) and provided the story for

Bernard Vorhaus Bernard Vorhaus (December 25, 1904 – November 23, 2000) was an American film director of Austrian descent, born in New York City. His father was born in Krakow, then part of Austria-Hungary. Vorhaus spent many decades living in the UK. Eearly ...

's '' The Ghost Camera'' (1933). Farjeon's crime novels were admired by

Dorothy L. Sayers Dorothy Leigh Sayers (; 13 June 1893 – 17 December 1957) was an English crime writer and poet. She was also a student of classical and modern languages. She is best known for her mysteries, a series of novels and short stories set between th ...

, who called him "unsurpassed for creepy skill in mysterious adventures". His obituarist in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

'' talked of "ingenious and entertaining plots and characterization," while ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', reviewing an early novel, ''Master Criminal'' (1924), states that "Mr. Farjeon displays a great deal of knowledge about story-telling... and multiplies the interest of his plot through a terse, telling style and a rigid compression." ''

The Saturday Review of Literature ''Saturday Review'', previously ''The Saturday Review of Literature'', was an American weekly magazine established in 1924. Norman Cousins was the editor from 1940 to 1971. Under Norman Cousins, it was described as "a compendium of reportage, es ...

'' called ''Death in the Inkwell'' (1942) an "amusing, satirical, and frequently hair-raising yarn of an author who got dangerously mixed up with his imaginary characters." A significant revival of interest in the

Golden age of detective fiction The Golden Age of Detective Fiction was an era of classic murder mystery novels of similar patterns and styles, predominantly in the 1920s and 1930s. The Golden Age proper is, in practice, usually taken to refer to a type of fiction which was pre ...

followed the 2014 success of

The British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

reissue of ''Mystery in White: A Christmas Crime Story.'' Two more reissues by Farjeon followed in 2015: ''Thirteen Guests'' and '' The Z Murders''. ''Mystery in White'' is also one of at least three of his novels to have appeared in Italian, French, Dutch (''Het mysterie in de sneeuw'' – The Mystery in the Snow), German, Spanish, Polish and Russian. ''Seven Dead'' has been reissued by The British Library (September 2017). The novel sees the return of Detective-Inspector Kendall, first heard of, in the words of its central character "in the case of the ''Thirteen Guests''. What I liked about him was that he didn't play the violin, or have a wooden leg or anything of that sort. He just got on with it." Since 2016, all eight Detective Ben novels have been reissued by

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from the

Collins Crime Club Collins Crime Club was an imprint of British book publishers William Collins, Sons and ran from 6 May 1930 to April 1994. Throughout its 64 years the club issued a total of 2,012in "The Hooded Gunman -- An Illustrated History of Collins Crim ...

archive as a series titled "Ben the tramp mystery".

Selected works

Crime fiction and other works

Detective Ben series

Under the pseudonym Anthony Swift

*''Murder at a Police Station'' (London, Hale, 1943) *''November the Ninth at Kersea'' (London, Hale, 1944) *''Interrupted Honeymoon'' (London, Hale, 1945)

The Detective X. Crook series

J.J. Farjeon's fictional character Detective X. Crook appeared from 1925–1929 in 57 issues of Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction.

Short story collections

*''Down the Green Stairs and Other Stories'' (''Down the Green Stairs'', ''February the Seventh'', ''It Happened in a Fog'', ''Tomatoes in Egg-Cups'') (London, Todd, 1943) *''Waiting for the Police and Other Short Stories'' (''The Other Side of the Bars'', ''Waiting for the Police'', ''Where's Mr. Jones?'') (London, Todd, 1943) *''The Invisible Companion and Other Stories'' (''February the Seventh'', ''In Reverse'', ''The Invisible Companion'', ''The Room That Got Lost'', ''Supper Is Served'') (London, Todd, 1943) *''The Twist and Other Stories'' (''The Twist'', ''The Room'', ''In Reverse'') (London, Vallancey Press, 1944) *''The Haunted Lake and Other Stories'' (''The Haunted Lake'', ''Midnight Adventure'', ''Supper is Served'', ''Exchange is No Robbery'') (London, Polybooks, 1945) *''Midnight Adventure and Other Stories'' (''Midnight Adventure'', ''The Vase and the Candlestick'', ''Waiting for the Police'', ''It Happened in the Fog'', ''Exchange is No Robbery'') (London & New York, Polybooks, 1946)

Plays

*'' Number 17'' (1925) *'' After Dark'' (1926) *''Enchantment'' (1927) *''Philomel'' (1932)

References

Other sources

*Bordman, Gerald Martin. ''American Theatre: A Chronicle of Comedy and Drama, 1914–1930''. Oxford University Press, 1995. *Krueger, Christine L. ''Encyclopedia of British Writers, 19th Century''. Infobase Publishing, 2003.

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Farjeon, Joseph Jefferson 1883 births 1955 deaths 20th-century English novelists 20th-century English non-fiction writers English crime fiction writers English Jews English male journalists English male novelists English people of American descent English male screenwriters

Joseph Joseph is a common male given name, derived from the Hebrew Yosef (יוֹסֵף). "Joseph" is used, along with "Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the mo ...

Writers from London 20th-century English male writers 20th-century English screenwriters