John Dickson Carr (1906–1977)
Author of The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes
About the Author
John Dickson Carr, the master of locked room mysteries, was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in 1906. He was educated at Haverford College and the Sorbonne in Paris. Carr is a prolific writer with more than 80 novels and collections of short stories to his credit. He began his writing career at the show more age of 26 with his first published novel, It Walks At Night. Some of his most popular works are The Three Coffins (1935), The Burning Coat (1937), and The Bride of Newgate (1951). Carr also collaborated with Adrian Doyle, the son of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes (1954). Carr met his wife in 1932 and settled in England in 1933. He was drafted by the United States military in World War II, and was ordered to remain in England and work with the BBC. He lived in many cities throughout the world until 1967, when he permanently moved to Greenville, South Carolina. John Dickson Carr also wrote mystery novels under the name Carter Dickson. He died in Greenville in 1977. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Works by John Dickson Carr
Dr. Fell Mysteries: To Wake the Dead/The Blind Barber/The Crooked Hinge/The Case of the Constant Suicides (1988) 45 copies, 2 reviews
Merrivale Holds the Key: Two Classic Locked-Room Mysteries: The Plague Court Murders / The Red Widow Murders (1935) 37 copies
A John Dickson Carr Trio: The Three Coffins/The Crooked Hinge/The Case of the Constant Suicides (1957) 31 copies, 1 review
The Dr. Gideon Fell Mysteries Volume One: The Blind Barber, Death-Watch, and To Wake the Dead (2018) 7 copies
The Bowstring Murders | The White Priory Murders | The Red Widow Murders | The Peacock Feather Murders (1961) 6 copies
Gideon Fell - There is No Perfect Crime: The Black Spectacles/Till Death Do Us Part/He Who Whispers/The Sleeping Sphinx (1976) 5 copies
Dr Gideon Fell: The Complete BBC Radio Drama Collection: Eight Full-Cast Crime Dramas from the Golden Age of Detective… (2021) 3 copies
カー短篇集. 1 3 copies
カー短篇集. 3 3 copies
カー短篇集. 2 3 copies
The John Dickson Carr Omnibus: Hag's Nook/The Mad Hatter Mystery/The Eight of Swords (2000) 3 copies
The Other Hangman [Short Story] 2 copies
The Adventure of the Black Baronet 2 copies
Poison in Jest | The Bowstring Murders | The Burning Court | The Problem of the Wire Cage | The Emperor's Snuff-Box |… (2003) 2 copies
Secret Radio 2 copies
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Great Stories — Editor — 2 copies
Death by Invisible Hands 1 copy
The Wrong Problem 1 copy
Gideon Fell 1 copy
La coppa del cavaliere 1 copy
O CRIME DAS MIL E UMA NOITES 1 copy
OS TRÊS ATAÚDES 1 copy
Fantasma in mare 1 copy
Books Inc. 1 copy
NOVELAS ESCOGIDAS 1 copy
The Crime In Nobody's Room 1 copy
Terrore sul Ponte di Londra 1 copy
Cloak and Dagger — Author — 1 copy
Il-Kastell Ras ta' Mewt 1 copy
El codo de Satanás 1 copy
Mediodía de espectros 1 copy
The House in Goblin Wood 1 copy
Il mistero di Muriel 1 copy
Oscura sospecha 1 copy
Ocho espadas 1 copy
O CASO DO COCHE FANTASMA 1 copy
Novelas escogidas 1 copy
Svart sanbat 1 copy
O ENIGMA DA CRIPTA 1 copy
Il Cappellaio Matto 1 copy
Associated Works
Masterpieces of Terror and the Supernatural: A Treasury of Spellbinding Tales Old & New (1985) — Contributor — 528 copies, 3 reviews
The Game Is Afoot: Parodies, Pastiches, and Ponderings of Sherlock Holmes (1994) — Contributor — 199 copies, 2 reviews
London After Midnight : A Tour of Its Criminal Haunts (1996) — Contributor; Contributor — 138 copies
The Mammoth Book of Locked-Room Mysteries and Impossible Crimes (2000) — Contributor — 120 copies, 1 review
101 Years' Entertainment: The Great Detective Stories 1841-1941 (1941) — Contributor — 102 copies, 1 review
Who Killed Father Christmas? and Other Seasonal Mysteries (2023) — Contributor — 34 copies, 1 review
The Mystery Hall of Fame: An Anthology of Classic Mystery and Suspense Stories (1984) — Contributor — 32 copies, 1 review
Murder Impossible: An Extravaganza of Miraculous Murders Fantastic Felonies & Incredible Criminals (1990) — Contributor — 32 copies
The Poison Belt: Together with The Disintegration Machine and When The World Screamed (1964) — Introduction, some editions — 30 copies
All but Impossible! An Anthology of Locked Room and Impossible Crime Stories by Members of the Mystery Writers of… (1981) — Contributor — 29 copies
Bodies from the Library 5: Forgotten Stories of Mystery and Suspense from the Golden Age of Detection (2022) — Contributor — 28 copies
To the Queen's Taste: The First Supplement to 101 Years' Entertainment; Consisting of the Best Stories Published in the… (1946) — Contributor — 24 copies
The Locked-Room Mysteries (The Four Just Men, The Mystery of the Yellow Room, The Hollow Man) (2017) — Contributor — 14 copies, 1 review
Academy Mystery Novellas: Women Sleuths, Police Procedurals, Locked Room Puzzles, Great British Detectives ( BOX Set) (1985) — Contributor — 14 copies
Rejser i tid og rum : en bog om science fiction (1973) — Author, some editions — 12 copies, 1 review
More Murder on Cue: Stage, Screen & Radio Favorites: Stories from Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (1988) — Contributor — 11 copies
Tricks and Treats: An Anthology of Mystery Stories by the Mystery Writers of America (1976) — Contributor — 9 copies
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction January 1957, Vol. 12, No. 1 (1957) — Contributor — 9 copies, 1 review
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction January 1955, Vol. 8, No. 1 (1955) — Contributor — 6 copies
Nieuwe verhalen die Hitchcock koos — Contributor — 6 copies
Crimes and Misfortunes: The Anthony Boucher Memorial Anthology of Mysteries — Contributor — 4 copies
Detective-verhalen — Contributor — 3 copies
Bedrooms Have Windows | Ninth Life | The Door to Doom — Contributor — 1 copy
Sherlock Holmes - volume 2 : La Vallée de la peur ; Le Chien des Baskerville ; Les Archives de Sherlock Holmes ; Son… — Author — 1 copy
The Dark Eyes of London | The Eight of Swords | The Iron Gates | The Second Confession | The Tragedy of Y (1965) — Contributor — 1 copy
The Waxworks Murder | A Gun to Play With | An Air That Kills — Contributor — 1 copy
Ellery Queen's 1966 Anthology — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Carr, John Dickson
- Other names
- Dickson, Carter
Dickson, Carr
Fairbairn, Roger - Birthdate
- 1906-11-30
- Date of death
- 1977-02-27
- Burial location
- Springwood Cemetery, Greenville, South Carolina, USA
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Uniontown, Pennsylvania, USA
- Place of death
- Greenville, South Carolina, USA
- Cause of death
- lung cancer
- Places of residence
- England, UK
Greenville, South Carolina, USA (death)
Uniontown, Pennsylvania, USA (birth) - Education
- Haverford College
The Sorbonne, Paris, France - Occupations
- novelist
short-story writer - Organizations
- Baker Street Irregulars
Detection Club (Britain) - Awards and honors
- MWA Grand Master (1963)
Ellery Queen prize (for short stories)
Members
Discussions
Exploits of Sherlock Holmes in Combiners! (February 2023)
Reviews
A Drunken Farce, without a Locked Room
Review of The Murder Room eBook (November 19, 2012) of the Harper and Brothers hardcover original (October 1, 1934)
The Blind Barber is a particularly weak entry for the Dr. Gideon Fell series and hopefully a one-off with its reliance on drunken comic antics. Dr. Fell is approached at home by his friend, the writer Henry (Hank) Morgan who was a passenger on the Queen Victoria cruise liner due to dock at Southampton after its journey from New York City. Morgan has managed to get ashore ahead of time via a smaller crew vessel as the larger ship awaits a docking berth.
Morgan relates a tale of how he and a group of friends had got themselves mixed-up in the middle of a jewelry heist and then found a body apparently murdered by a cutthroat razor (the single brief tie-in to the title) but when bringing it to the attention of the ship's authorities they found that the body had disappeared. Enormous amounts of alcohol are consumed throughout, adding to the befuddlement of the characters. There were various other irritations such as having 3 characters deliver their dialogue in fake accented dialogue: a Norwegian, a Scot and an Italian.
What might be funny in small doses becomes insufferable when used several dozen times.
There are also extended fake French language passages, usually involving ranting about the alcohol intake.
The front cover of the original 1934 Harper and Brothers hardcover. Image sourced from Goodreads.
To top it off, there are artefacts which demonstrate that a sloppy proofread / copy edit of the text scan was done to produce the eBook edition. Various scan typos were not fixed, even some that should have been caught by spellcheck such as the word: "endorsemHnt" (sic).
Dr. Fell is able to explain it all of course and even to cable a message to the authorities to have the culprit arrested upon docking. Overall, there was too little deduction, even though Fell lists 16 clues which point to the villain during the course of the story-telling. Disappointingly, I thought the bad 'un was apparent fairly early on, unlike most John Dickson Carr books which usually involve confusing puzzles in the so-called "locked room" sub-genre.
Avoid this one, even if you are a Dr. Fell or John Dickson Carr completist.
Bonus Track
Even among the dregs and the dross, I thought this one passage describing inebriation 🥴😵 was rather good:
Trivia and Links
John Dickson Carr (1906-1977) is one of the 99 authors listed in The Book of Forgotten Authors>/i> (2017) by Christopher Fowler. He is No. 20 in the alphabetical listing which you can see towards the bottom of my review here.
John Dickson Carr took the inspiration for Dr. Gideon Fell's appearance from that of author G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), writer of the Father Brown mysteries and other works.
See photograph at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/Gilbert_Chesterton.jpg...
Photograph of G.K. Chesterton. Image sourced from Wikipedia.
The source of the name Dr. Fell is apparently from the apocryphal epigram:
Review of The Murder Room eBook (November 19, 2012) of the Harper and Brothers hardcover original (October 1, 1934)
Uninsured jewels belonging to ?!£&/! viscounts were stolen while murdering thieves posed as Harley Street doctors at his table. Blood-stained blankets and razors mysteriously appeared in the cabins; women vanished but did not vanish; the nephews of eminent American administrators first went mad and gibbered of bears and geography then ran amok with bug-powder guns, tried to poison him and finally threatened him with razors. Indeed, an unprejudiced listener would have decided that the situation aboard the Queen Victoria was past hope. - the ship's captain summarizes the mayhem of events on board his ship.
The Blind Barber is a particularly weak entry for the Dr. Gideon Fell series and hopefully a one-off with its reliance on drunken comic antics. Dr. Fell is approached at home by his friend, the writer Henry (Hank) Morgan who was a passenger on the Queen Victoria cruise liner due to dock at Southampton after its journey from New York City. Morgan has managed to get ashore ahead of time via a smaller crew vessel as the larger ship awaits a docking berth.
Morgan relates a tale of how he and a group of friends had got themselves mixed-up in the middle of a jewelry heist and then found a body apparently murdered by a cutthroat razor (the single brief tie-in to the title) but when bringing it to the attention of the ship's authorities they found that the body had disappeared. Enormous amounts of alcohol are consumed throughout, adding to the befuddlement of the characters. There were various other irritations such as having 3 characters deliver their dialogue in fake accented dialogue: a Norwegian, a Scot and an Italian.
“You get somet’ing to gag him wit’ till he cool down, or he call de chief mate and den maybe we iss all in de brig." “do you t’ank we are right, or iss dere a mistake? Dat wass no yoke, what dey tell us. If dey say dere is nobody missing, den ay don’t see how dere is somebody missing. Maybe we talk about a murder and dere is no murder.”
"'Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses,'" announced Dr. Kyle, with a gesture that indicated him to be a local boy and proud of it, "'for honest men and bonnie lasses'! Aye! A statement ye ken, Mr. Morgan, frae the wairks o' the great Scottish poet, Rabbie Burrrns. Sit down Mr. Morgan. And perhaps yell tak a drap o' whusky, eh? 'The souter tauld his queerest stories__.'"
“So! So! You have trieda to de-ceive me, eh? You have a trieda toa deceive Signor Benito Furioso Camposozzi, eh? Sangua della madonne, I feex you! You tella me he eesa all-right, eh? Haah! What you call all-aright, eh? I tell you, signorina, to youra face, he eesa DRUNK!”
What might be funny in small doses becomes insufferable when used several dozen times.
There are also extended fake French language passages, usually involving ranting about the alcohol intake.
“Eh, bien, eh bien! Encore tu bois! Toujours tu bois! Ah, zut, alors!” She became cutting. “Tu m’a donné votre parole d’honneur, comme un soldat de la France! Et qu’est-ce que je trouve? Un soldat de la France, hein! Non!” She drew back witheringly. “Je te vois en buvant le GIN!”
The front cover of the original 1934 Harper and Brothers hardcover. Image sourced from Goodreads.
To top it off, there are artefacts which demonstrate that a sloppy proofread / copy edit of the text scan was done to produce the eBook edition. Various scan typos were not fixed, even some that should have been caught by spellcheck such as the word: "endorsemHnt" (sic).
Dr. Fell is able to explain it all of course and even to cable a message to the authorities to have the culprit arrested upon docking. Overall, there was too little deduction, even though Fell lists 16 clues which point to the villain during the course of the story-telling. Disappointingly, I thought the bad 'un was apparent fairly early on, unlike most John Dickson Carr books which usually involve confusing puzzles in the so-called "locked room" sub-genre.
Avoid this one, even if you are a Dr. Fell or John Dickson Carr completist.
Bonus Track
Even among the dregs and the dross, I thought this one passage describing inebriation 🥴😵 was rather good:
Each of his trio had consumed exactly one bottle of champagne; and, while he would have scorned the imputation that he could become the least sozzled on a quart of fizz, he could not in honesty deny certain insidious manifestations. For example, it seemed to him that he was entirely without legs, and that his torso must be moving through the air in a singularly ghostly fashion;
Trivia and Links
John Dickson Carr (1906-1977) is one of the 99 authors listed in The Book of Forgotten Authors>/i> (2017) by Christopher Fowler. He is No. 20 in the alphabetical listing which you can see towards the bottom of my review here.
John Dickson Carr took the inspiration for Dr. Gideon Fell's appearance from that of author G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), writer of the Father Brown mysteries and other works.
See photograph at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/Gilbert_Chesterton.jpg...
Photograph of G.K. Chesterton. Image sourced from Wikipedia.
The source of the name Dr. Fell is apparently from the apocryphal epigram:
I do not like thee, Doctor Fell,… (more)
The reason why – I cannot tell;
But this I know, and know full well,
I do not like thee, Doctor Fell.
Death by the Tarot
Review of the Penzler Publishers American Mystery Classics eBook (July 17, 2019) of the Harper and Brothers hardcover original (1934).
The Eight of Swords is the third of Carr's rel="nofollow" target="_top">Dr. Gideon Fell mysteries. An American ex-pat named Depping is found dead in his English country home, shot with his own gun with the Minor Arcana Tarot card The Eight of Swords in his hand, standing for "condemning justice." Who was the mysterious visitor that Depping had late at night? Why were two shots fired from the gun, but only one bullet found on site? Who ate Depping's dinner but didn't touch his favourite soup? What was burned in the fireplace? How and why did the lights in the house go out at a key moment? Those and many other questions come to light before the case is solved.
See image at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a7/Swords08.jpg/300px-Swo...
The Tarot card "The Eight of Swords". Image sourced from Wikipedia.
I thought there was too little of Dr. Gideon Fell in this book. He disappears off the page for extended periods of time and other self-taught "detectives" propose various solutions to the crime. The interlopers are an Anglican bishop and a detective story writer who seek to match wits with Dr. Fell. Then there are 2 romantic subplots introduced as well in order to further muddy the waters. It is all explained by Dr. Fell in the end of course, and you realize the clues were there, but became lost in the confusion. This was yet another impossible to solve mystery, a 10 out of 10 on the Berengaria Ease of Solving© scale.
See book cover at https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/...
The front cover of the original 1934 Harper and Brothers hardcover. Image sourced from Goodreads.
Footnote
Sexton Blake (1893-) was a popular Victorian Era fictional detective, who is perhaps not so well known these days. He was created by author Harry Blyth (1852-1898) and after his death there was a regular continuation series with several other writers.
Trivia and Links
This book is in the Public Domain and there are various online sources where it is available to read such as at archive.org
John Dickson Carr (1906-1977) is one of the 99 authors listed in The Book of Forgotten Authors (2017) by Christopher Fowler. He is No. 20 in the alphabetical listing which you can see towards the bottom of my review here.
This edition of The Eight of Swords is part of the Otto Penzler American Mystery Classics series (2018-ongoing). There is a related Goodreads Listopia here with 57 books listed as of late April 2024. There are currently 72 titles listed at the Mysterious Press online bookshop. The official website for the series at Penzler Publishers seems to show only the most recent and upcoming titles.
John Dickson Carr took the inspiration for Dr. Gideon Fell's appearance from that of author G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), writer of the Father Brown mysteries and other works.
See photograph at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/Gilbert_Chesterton.jpg...
Photograph of G.K. Chesterton. Image sourced from Wikipedia.
The source of the name Dr. Fell is apparently from the apocryphal epigram:
Review of the Penzler Publishers American Mystery Classics eBook (July 17, 2019) of the Harper and Brothers hardcover original (1934).
Dr. Fell was not at all disconcerted. “It would seem that for the moment I am in disgrace,” he wheezed affably. “H’mf. No matter. Sexton Blake* will yet be triumphant.
The Eight of Swords is the third of Carr's rel="nofollow" target="_top">Dr. Gideon Fell mysteries. An American ex-pat named Depping is found dead in his English country home, shot with his own gun with the Minor Arcana Tarot card The Eight of Swords in his hand, standing for "condemning justice." Who was the mysterious visitor that Depping had late at night? Why were two shots fired from the gun, but only one bullet found on site? Who ate Depping's dinner but didn't touch his favourite soup? What was burned in the fireplace? How and why did the lights in the house go out at a key moment? Those and many other questions come to light before the case is solved.
See image at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a7/Swords08.jpg/300px-Swo...
The Tarot card "The Eight of Swords". Image sourced from Wikipedia.
I thought there was too little of Dr. Gideon Fell in this book. He disappears off the page for extended periods of time and other self-taught "detectives" propose various solutions to the crime. The interlopers are an Anglican bishop and a detective story writer who seek to match wits with Dr. Fell. Then there are 2 romantic subplots introduced as well in order to further muddy the waters. It is all explained by Dr. Fell in the end of course, and you realize the clues were there, but became lost in the confusion. This was yet another impossible to solve mystery, a 10 out of 10 on the Berengaria Ease of Solving© scale.
See book cover at https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/...
The front cover of the original 1934 Harper and Brothers hardcover. Image sourced from Goodreads.
Footnote
Sexton Blake (1893-) was a popular Victorian Era fictional detective, who is perhaps not so well known these days. He was created by author Harry Blyth (1852-1898) and after his death there was a regular continuation series with several other writers.
Trivia and Links
This book is in the Public Domain and there are various online sources where it is available to read such as at archive.org
John Dickson Carr (1906-1977) is one of the 99 authors listed in The Book of Forgotten Authors (2017) by Christopher Fowler. He is No. 20 in the alphabetical listing which you can see towards the bottom of my review here.
This edition of The Eight of Swords is part of the Otto Penzler American Mystery Classics series (2018-ongoing). There is a related Goodreads Listopia here with 57 books listed as of late April 2024. There are currently 72 titles listed at the Mysterious Press online bookshop. The official website for the series at Penzler Publishers seems to show only the most recent and upcoming titles.
John Dickson Carr took the inspiration for Dr. Gideon Fell's appearance from that of author G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), writer of the Father Brown mysteries and other works.
See photograph at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/Gilbert_Chesterton.jpg...
Photograph of G.K. Chesterton. Image sourced from Wikipedia.
The source of the name Dr. Fell is apparently from the apocryphal epigram:
I do not like thee, Doctor Fell,… (more)
The reason why – I cannot tell;
But this I know, and know full well,
I do not like thee, Doctor Fell.
Great book. A lot of twists and turns, and compelling throughout. It is justifiably listed as one of the best impossible crime novels.
Lists
Awards
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 207
- Also by
- 137
- Members
- 16,653
- Popularity
- #1,356
- Rating
- 3.7
- Reviews
- 357
- ISBNs
- 836
- Languages
- 18
- Favorited
- 37
Up there with the rest of them me thinks.
Big Ship 1 July 2024