Classic Mystery Collection - Illustrated - Crime, Suspense, Detective fiction. (100+ works) including The Complete Collection of Sherlock Holmes, ... Agatha Christie, Sax Rohmer & more (mobi), page 4
This was the first time a Governor General had died during his term of office since Confederation. After the lying-in-state in the Senate Chamber, a state funeral for Lord Tweedsmuir was held at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Ottawa. His ashes were returned to England on the cruiser HMS Orion for final burial at Elsfield, where he had bought the Manor in 1920.
Reputation
In recent years in common with some of his contemporaries, Buchan's reputation has been tarnished by the lack of political correctness, e.g. the anti-semitism and racism expressed in some passages from his novels, such as the opening chapter of The Thirty-Nine Steps. The view in 'The Thirty-Nine Steps' that 'the Jews are behind it all' is actually expressed by a minor character, the American Scudder. This causes the main character, Richard Hannay, to doubt Scudder's sanity; another character in the book later says Scudder is a little cracked about the Jews.
It should also be noted that he was active on behalf of the Jews during the 1930s and, for this reason, his name appeared on Adolf Hitler's "hit list".)
A thoroughly engaging storyteller, Buchan's work stands the test of time, and he is currently undergoing a resurgence in popularity.
Buchan had a reputation for discretion. He was involved with the Intelligence Corps as a propagandist during World War I and may have had an involvement with British intelligence later; he is cited as having some involvement during the years leading to the Second World War by Canadian-born British spymaster William Stephenson.
In the 1930s Buchan gave financial and moral support to the poor, young academic Roberto Weiss, as Buchan was fascinated by the classical antiquity period Weiss studied, and wished to support this.
His autobiography Memory Hold-the-Door (published in the United States as Pilgrim's Way) was said to be John F. Kennedy's favourite book although a list given to Life magazine in 1961 quoted Montrose at the head of the list.
John Buchan is commemorated in Makars' Court, outside The Writers' Museum, Lawnmarket, Edinburgh.
Selections for Makars' Court are made by The Writers' Museum; The Saltire Society; The Scottish Poetry Library.
Bibliography of principal works
Fiction
1898 John Burnet of Barns
1899 Grey Weather (stories and poems)
1899 A Lost Lady of Old Years
1900 The Half-Hearted
1902 The Watcher by the Threshold (stories)
1906 A Lodge in the Wilderness
1910 Prester John
1912 The Moon Endureth (stories and poems)
1915 Salute to Adventurers
1915 The Thirty-Nine Steps
1916 The Power House
1916 Greenmantle
1919 Mr Standfast
1921 The Path of the King
1922 Huntingtower
1923 Midwinter
1924 The Three Hostages
1925 John Macnab
1926 The Dancing Floor
1927 Witch Wood
1928 The Runagates Club (stories 1913-28)
1929 The Courts of the Morning
1930 Castle Gay
1931 The Blanket of the Dark
1932 The Gap in the Curtain
1932 The Magic Walking Stick (for children)
1933 A Prince of the Captivity
1934 The Free Fishers
1935 The House of the Four Winds
1936 The Island of Sheep
1941 Sick Heart River (also published as Mountain Meadow)
1941 The Long Traverse (also published as Lake of Gold)
Non-fiction
1896 Scholar-Gipsies (essays)
1903 The African Colony
1905 The Law Relating to the Taxation of Foreign Income
1908 Some Eighteenth Century Byways (essays and articles)
1911 Sir Walter Raleigh
1912 What the Home Rule Bill Means
1913 The Marquis of Montrose
1913 Andrew Jameson, Lord Ardwall
1915 Britain's War by Land
1915 The Achievement of France
1915 Ordeal by Marriage
1916 The Future of the War
1916 The Battle of the Somme, First Phase
1916 The Purpose of War
1916 The Battle of Jutland
1917 Poems, Scots and English
1917 The Battle of the Somme, Second Phase
1919 These for Remembrance
1919 The Battle Honours of Scotland 1914-1918
1920 The History of the South African Forces in France
1920 Francis and Riversdale Grenfell
1920 The Long Road to Victory
1921-2 A History of the Great War
1922 A Book of Escapes and Hurried Journeys
1923 The Last Secrets (essays and articles)
1923 A History of English Literature
1923 Days to Remember
1924 Some Notes on Sir Walter Scott
1925 The History of the Royal Scots Fusiliers 1678-1918
1925 The Man and the Book: Sir Walter Scott
1925 Two Ordeals of Democracy
1926 Homilies and Recreations (essays and addresses)
1930 The Kirk in Scotland (with George Adam Smith)
1930 Montrose and Leadership
1930 Lord Rosebery, 1847-1929
1931 The Novel and the Fairy Tale
1932 Julius Caesar
1932 Andrew Lang and the Borders
1933 The Massacre of Glencoe
1933 The Margins of Life
1934 Gordon at Khartoum
1934 Oliver Cromwell
1935 The King's Grace
1937 Augustus
1938 The Interpreter's House
1938 Presbyterianism Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
1940 Memory Hold-the-Door (published as Pilgrim's Way in the United States)
1940 Comments and Characters
1940 Canadian Occasions
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Edmund Clerihew Bentley
E. C. Bentley (July 10, 1875 - March 30, 1956), was a popular English novelist and humorist of the early twentieth century, and the inventor of the clerihew, an irregular form of humorous verse on biographical topics.
Born in London, and educated at St Paul's School and Merton College, Oxford, Bentley worked as a journalist on several newspapers, including the Daily Telegraph. His first published collection of poetry, titled Biography for Beginners (1905), popularized the clerihew form; it was followed by two other collections, in 1929 and 1939. His detective novel, Trent's Last Case (1913), was much praised, numbering Dorothy L. Sayers among its admirers, and with its labyrinthine and mystifying plotting can be seen as the first truly modern mystery. The success of the work inspired him, after 23 years, to write a sequel, Trent's Own Case (1936). There was also a book of Trent short stories, Trent Intervenes. Several of his books were reprinted in the early 2000s by House of Stratus.
From 1936 until 1949 Bentley was president of the Detection Club and contributed to both of their radio serials broadcast in 1930 and 1931 and published in 1983 as The Scoop and Behind The Screen. He died at the age of 80 in 1956. His son Nicolas Bentley was a famous illustrator.
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G. K. Chesterton
Life | Writing | Views and contemporaries | The Chesterbelloc | List of major works | Influence
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (May 29, 1874-June 14, 1936) was an influential English writer of the early 20th century. His prolific and diverse output included journalism, philosophy, poetry, biography, Christian apologetics, fantasy, and detective fiction.
Chesterton has been called the "prince of paradox." He wrote in an off-hand, whimsical prose studded with startling formulations. For example: "Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it."He is one of the few Christian thinkers who are equally admired and quoted by both liberal and conservative Christians, and indeed by many non-Christians. Chesterton's own theological and political views were far too nuanced to fit comfortably under the "liberal" or "conservative" banner. And in his own words he cast aspersions on the labels saying, "The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected." He routinely referred to himself as an "orthodox Christian," and came to identify such a position with Roman Catholicism more and more, eventually converting to the Church of Rome.
He is not to be confused with his politically radical cousin, A. K. Chesterton.
Life
Born in Campden Hill in Kensington in London, Chesterton was educated at St Paul's School. He attended the Slade School of Art in order to become an illustrator and also took literature classes at University College London but did not complete a degree at either. In 1896 Chesterton began working for the London publisher Redway, and T. Fisher Unwin, where he remained until 1902. During this period he also undertook his first journalistic work as a freelance art and literary critic. In 1901 he married Frances Blogg, to whom he remained married for the rest of his life. In 1902 he was given a weekly opinion column in the Daily News, followed in 1905 by a weekly column in The Illustrated London News, for which he would continue to write for the next thirty years.
According to Chesterton, as a young man he became fascinated with the occult and, along with his brother Cecil, experimented with Ouija boards. However, as he grew older, he became an increasingly orthodox Christian, culminating in his conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1922.
Chesterton was a large man, standing 6 feet 4 inches (1.93 m) and weighing around 21 stone (134 kg or 294 lb). His girth gave rise to a famous anecdote. During World War I a lady in London asked why he wasn't 'out at the Front'; he replied, 'If you go round to the side, you will see that I am.' On another occasion he remarked to his friend George Bernard Shaw, 'To look at you, anyone would think there was a famine in England.' Shaw retorted, 'To look at you, anyone would think you caused it.'
He usually wore a cape and a crumpled hat, with a swordstick in hand, and had a cigar hanging out of his mouth. Chesterton often forgot where he was supposed to be going and would miss the train that was supposed to take him there. It is reported that on several occasions he sent a telegram to his wife from some distant (and incorrect) location, writing such things as "Am at Market Harborough. Where ought I to be?" to which she would reply, "Home."
Chesterton loved to debate, often engaging in friendly public disputes with such men as George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, Bertrand Russell and Clarence Darrow. According to his autobiography, he and Shaw played cowboys in a silent movie that was never released.
Chesterton died on 14 June 1936, at his home in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire. The homily at Chesterton's Requiem Mass in Westminster Cathedral, London, was delivered by Ronald Knox. He is buried in Beaconsfield in the Catholic Cemetery. Chesterton's estate was probated at 28,389 pounds sterling, approximately equivalent to USD 2.6 million in modern terms.
Writing
Chesterton wrote around 80 books, several hundred poems, some 200 short stories, 4000 essays, and several plays. He was a literary and social critic, historian, playwright, novelist, Catholic theologian and apologist, debater, and mystery writer. He was a columnist for the Daily News, the Illustrated London News, and his own paper, G. K.'s Weekly; he also wrote articles for the Encyclopedia Britannica. His best-known character is the priest-detective Father Brown, who appeared only in short stories, while The Man Who Was Thursday is arguably his best-known novel. He was a convinced Christian long before he was received into the Catholic church, and Christian themes and symbolism appear in much of his writing. In the United States, his writings on distributism were popularized through The American Review, published by Seward Collins in New York.
Much of his poetry is little known, though well reflecting his beliefs and opinions. The best written is probably Lepanto, with The Rolling English Road the most familiar, and The Secret People perhaps the most quoted ("we are the people of England; and we have not spoken yet"). Another excellent poem is A Ballade of Suicide.
Of his nonfiction, Charles Dickens (1903) has received some of the broadest-based praise. According to Ian Ker (The Catholic Revival in English Literature, 1845-1961, 2003), "In Chesterton's eyes Dickens belongs to Merry, not Puritan, England" (see Merry England); Ker treats in Chapter 4 of that book Chesterton's thought as largely growing out of his true appreciation of Dickens, a somewhat shop-soiled property in the view of other literary opinions of the time.
Chesterton's writings consistently displayed wit and a sense of humour. He employed paradox, while making serious comments on the world, government, politics, economics, philosophy, theology and many other topics. When The Times invited several eminent authors to write essays on the theme "What's Wrong with the World?" Chesterton's contribution took the form of a letter:
Dear Sirs,
I am.
Sincerely yours,
G. K. Chesterton
Typically, Chesterton here combined wit with a serious point (that of human sinfulness) and self-deprecation.
Much of Chesterton's work remains in print, including collections of the Father Brown detective stories. Ignatius Press is currently in the process of publishing a Complete Works.
Views and contemporaries
The roots of Chesterton's approach have been taken to be in two earlier strands in English literature, Dickens being one. In the use of paradox, against complacent acceptance of things as they are, he is often categorised with Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw, whom he knew well, as Victorian satirists and social commentators in a tradition coming also from Samuel Butler.
Chesterton's style and thinking were all his own, however, and his conclusions were often diametrically opposed to those of his predecessors and contemporaries. In his book Heretics, Chesterton has this to say of Oscar Wilde:
"The same lesson [of the pessimistic pleasure-seeker] was taught by the very powerful and very desolate philosophy of Oscar Wilde. It is the carpe diem religion; but the carpe diem religion is not the religion of happy people, but of very unhappy people. Great joy does not gather the rosebuds while it may; its eyes are fixed on the immortal rose which Dante saw."
More briefly, and with a closer approximation of Wilde's own style, he writes in Orthodoxy concerning the necessity of making symbolic sacrifices for the gift of creation:
"Oscar Wilde said that sunsets were not valued because we could not pay for sunsets. But Oscar Wilde was wrong; we can pay for sunsets. We can pay for them by not being Oscar Wilde."
Chesterton and George Bernard Shaw were famous friends and enjoyed their arguments and discussions. Although rarely in agreement, they both maintained good-will towards and respect for each other. However, in his writing, Chesterton expressed himself very plainly on where they differed and why. In Heretics he writes of Shaw:
"After belabouring a great many people for a great many years for being unprogressive, Mr. Shaw has discovered, with characteristic sense, that it is very doubtful whether any existing human being with two legs can be progressive at all. Having come to doubt whether humanity can be combined with progress, most people, easily pleased, would have elected to abandon progress and remain with humanity. Mr. Shaw, not being easily pleased, decides to throw over humanity with all its limitations and go in for progress for its own sake. If man, as we know him, is incapable of the philosophy of progress, Mr. Shaw asks, not for a new kind of philosophy, but for a new kind of man. It is rather as if a nurse had tried a rather bitter food for some years on a baby, and on discovering that it was not suitable, should not throw away the food and ask for a new food, but throw the baby out of window, and ask for a new baby."
Shaw represented the new school of thought, humanism, which was rising at the time. Chesterton's views, on the other hand, became increasingly more polarized towards the church. In Orthodoxy he writes:
"The worship of will is the negation of will. . . If Mr. Bernard Shaw comes up to me and says, "Will something," that is tantamount to saying, "I do not mind what you will," and that is tantamount to saying, "I have no will in the matter." You cannot admire will in general, because the essence of will is that it is particular."
This style of argumentation is what Chesterton refers to as using 'Uncommon Sense'-that is, that the thinkers and popular philosophers of the day, though very clever, were saying things that appeared, to him, to be nonsensical. This is illustrated again in Orthodoxy:
"Thus when Mr. H. G. Wells says (as he did somewhere), "All chairs are quite different," he utters not merely a misstatement, but a contradiction in terms. If all chairs were quite different, you could not call them "all chairs."
Or, again from Orthodoxy:
"The wild worship of lawlessness and the materialist worship of law end in the same void. Nietzsche scales staggering mountains, but he turns up ultimately in Tibet. He sits down beside Tolstoy in the land of nothing and Nirvana. They are both helpless—one because he must not grasp anything, and the other because he must not let go of anything. The Tolstoyan’s will is frozen by a Buddhist instinct that all special actions are evil. But the Nietzscheite’s will is quite equally frozen by his view that all special actions are good; for if all special actions are good, none of them are special. They stand at the crossroads, and one hates all the roads and the other likes all the roads. The result is—well, some things are not hard to calculate. They stand at the cross-roads."
"All healthy men, ancient and modern, Eastern and Western, know that there is a certain fury in sex that we cannot afford to inflame and that a certain mystery and awe must forever surround it if we are to remain sane."
