Julian Symons (1912–1994)
Autore di Bloody Murder: From the Detective Story to the Crime Novel
Sull'Autore
Serie
Opere di Julian Symons
The Julian Symons Omnibus: The Man Who Killed Himself | The Man Whose Dreams Came True | The Man Who Lost His Wife (1967) 27 copie
El hombre que se mato a si mismo. El circulo se estrecha. El hombre cuyos suenos se realizaron (1983) 16 copie
Criminal acts : three by Julian Symons (The Narrowing Circle; The End of Solomon Grundy; and The Blackheath Poisonings) (1978) 10 copie
Das Geheimnis des gelben Geparden / Schnitzeljagd / Katenkamp und der tote Briefträger. (1988) 4 copie
Between the wars : Britain in photographs / introduction and commentaries by Julian Symons. (1972) 3 copie
Confusions about X 2 copie
The second man; poems 2 copie
Carlyle: Selected Works 2 copie
The Man Who Killed Himself 2 copie
The Santa Claus Club 2 copie
The Invisible Man [short story] 1 copia
VENENOS VITORIANOS (PE2L64) 1 copia
Slutet på visan 1 copia
Symons Julian 1 copia
Drohende Schatten 1 copia
The Hundred Best Crime Stories 1 copia
The Julian Symons Omnibus 1 copia
The Adventure Of Hillerman Hall 1 copia
The Man Who Killed Himself 1 copia
Opere correlate
The New Bedside, Bathtub, and Armchair Companion to Agatha Christie (1986) — Prefazione, alcune edizioni; Introduzione — 538 copie
The Bedside, Bathtub, and Armchair Companion to Agatha Christie (1979) — Introduzione, alcune edizioni — 209 copie
Murder by the Book: Literary Mysteries from Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (1995) — Collaboratore — 67 copie
The Murder Book: An Illustrated History of the Detective Story (1971) — Prefazione, alcune edizioni — 63 copie
The Two Heroines of Plumplington and Other Stories (1882) — Introduzione, alcune edizioni — 62 copie
All but Impossible! An Anthology of Locked Room and Impossible Crime Stories by Members of the Mystery Writers of… (1981) — Collaboratore — 29 copie
Bodies from the Library 5: Forgotten Stories of Mystery and Suspense from the Golden Age of Detection (2022) — Collaboratore — 28 copie
Ellery Queen's Anthology #32: Magicians of Mystery (Fall/Winter 1976) (1976) — Collaboratore — 9 copie
Agenda : Wyndham Lewis special issue — Collaboratore — 6 copie
Killers of the Mind: A Collection of Stories by the Mystery Writers of America (1974) — Collaboratore — 4 copie
Best Crime Stories — Collaboratore — 3 copie
New poems 1944. An anthology of American and British verse with a selection of poems from the armed forces. (1944) — Collaboratore — 2 copie
Den lystige bedemand og andre hårrejsende historier af gæster i Poe-klubben (1975) — Autore, alcune edizioni — 2 copie
Ellery Queen's Mysterie Magazine 5 — Collaboratore — 1 copia
Appendici in giallo 1 (racconti) — Collaboratore — 1 copia
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Nome canonico
- Symons, Julian
- Nome legale
- Symons, Julian Gustave
- Data di nascita
- 1912-05-30
- Data di morte
- 1994-11-19
- Sesso
- male
- Nazionalità
- UK
- Luogo di nascita
- London, England, UK
- Luogo di morte
- Kent, England, UK
- Luogo di residenza
- London, England, UK
- Attività lavorative
- crime novelist
editor
literary critic
historical novelist
essayist
biographer (mostra tutto 8)
teacher
poet - Relazioni
- Symons, A. J. A. (brother)
- Organizzazioni
- Detection Club
Amherst College
British Army (WWII) - Premi e riconoscimenti
- Cartier Diamond Dagger 1990
- Breve biografia
- Julian Symons, born in London, was a younger brother, and later the biographer, of the writer A. J. A. Symons. He left school at 14. He founded the poetry magazine Twentieth Century Verse in 1937 and edited it for two years. He tried crime writing in a light–hearted way before World War II, and later became a leader of the genre. As an early Trotskyite, he applied for recognition as a conscientious objector at the start of WW II, but ended up in the Royal Armoured Corps from 1942 to 1944. After a period as an advertising copywriter, he became a full-time writer in 1947. His use of irony and black humor to show the violence behind the respectable masks of society, and his emphasis on character and psychology, have caused many to consider his books mainstream fiction. During his career, he won two Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America and, in 1982, received the MWA's Grand Master Award. Symons served as the president of the Detection Club from 1976 to 1985. His 1972 book Bloody Murder: From the Detective Story to the Crime Novel (published as Mortal Consequences in the USA) is one of the best-known critical works in the field of crime fiction. Symons wrote more than 30 crime novels and story collections and also made occasional forays into historical mystery, such as The Blackheath Poisonings (1978), which was filmed for television in 1992.
Utenti
Recensioni
Tony Shelton is a cricket player with aspirations to being a top player. But he is playing it down and trying to be more bookish to impress Victoria Rawlings. He’s gone to the extent of giving up cricket, his passion, to win this girl.
Victoria Rawlings is the granddaughter of Martin Rawlings, a renowned poet. She is very bookish, extremely proud of her literary connection and very anti-cricket.
The two are engaged and for an engagement gift, Tony purchases a rare collection of Martin Rawlings poems at a very high price. Questions arise about the authenticity of the collection. It seems there are a numbers of these collections that have been found to be fakes.
To verify the authenticity, Tony seeks the expertise of well-known sellers who are considered experts on Rawlings’ work. Tony finds there is a “no love lost” attitude between these people as each feels they are the top expert in the field. Their differences don’t help Tony, and it is only worse when some turn up dead one after another.
Inspector Wrax is given the case. Wrax is a mean man who is suspicious of everyone, he bulldozes his way through the investigation with blunt questions and a focus on making an arrest.
Disappointed with Wrax’s methods and slow progress, Tony takes it upon himself to do his own investigation. He gets assistance from Victoria, John Basingstoke (a writer with a prominent scar on the right side of his face), Ruth Cleverly (a researcher and Basingstoke’s friend), and Bland (a law clerk with an extensive interest in criminology. As the group makes inroads to the mystery, good and bad, the pieces fall into place.
Bland is an interesting character who is brought in midway. A loner with quite a knowledgeable background. This is the third book in a short series. I hope to find the others to read.… (altro)
Victoria Rawlings is the granddaughter of Martin Rawlings, a renowned poet. She is very bookish, extremely proud of her literary connection and very anti-cricket.
The two are engaged and for an engagement gift, Tony purchases a rare collection of Martin Rawlings poems at a very high price. Questions arise about the authenticity of the collection. It seems there are a numbers of these collections that have been found to be fakes.
To verify the authenticity, Tony seeks the expertise of well-known sellers who are considered experts on Rawlings’ work. Tony finds there is a “no love lost” attitude between these people as each feels they are the top expert in the field. Their differences don’t help Tony, and it is only worse when some turn up dead one after another.
Inspector Wrax is given the case. Wrax is a mean man who is suspicious of everyone, he bulldozes his way through the investigation with blunt questions and a focus on making an arrest.
Disappointed with Wrax’s methods and slow progress, Tony takes it upon himself to do his own investigation. He gets assistance from Victoria, John Basingstoke (a writer with a prominent scar on the right side of his face), Ruth Cleverly (a researcher and Basingstoke’s friend), and Bland (a law clerk with an extensive interest in criminology. As the group makes inroads to the mystery, good and bad, the pieces fall into place.
Bland is an interesting character who is brought in midway. A loner with quite a knowledgeable background. This is the third book in a short series. I hope to find the others to read.… (altro)
I think I enjoyed The Belting Inheritance a bit better than this one, but it was still quite a good mystery and well worth a read.
An experimental style, mystery begins with suspect speaking to a psychologist, followed by his trial and an epilogue with a surprising twist. A lonely man in an unhappy marriage falls in love with his fantasy of a young women who works at the library.
Liste
Edgar Award (1)
Premi e riconoscimenti
Potrebbero anche piacerti
Autori correlati
Statistiche
- Opere
- 118
- Opere correlate
- 117
- Utenti
- 3,240
- Popolarità
- #7,893
- Voto
- 3.9
- Recensioni
- 74
- ISBN
- 395
- Lingue
- 11
- Preferito da
- 3
The narrative centres on John Wilkins, a minor-league fantasist in denial about his drinking problem. His fantasies and his drinking owe much to his grasping, social-climbing wife, May, and his overbearing, meddling mother. Their intertwined lives induce an atmosphere of intense entrapment. The reader is given to wonder how many similar miserable situations have been avoided by the liberalisation of the divorce laws and the loosening of stifling middle-class social norms since the 1950s. If John and May could just have separated painlessly, and acceptably to all, none of the plot happens.
Since they can't separate, the plot happens. John's fantasies lead him into a tangle of lies and a delusional semi-affair with a young woman; his lies, along with his drinking and concomitant blackouts, contribute to the credibility of the murder case against him when she's found dead. The book has two parts. The first is a long pre-trial interview between John and a psychiatrist. He was irrationally involved with her. He may have killed her. He doesn't know. He can't remember. The second is the trial itself. An epilogue seems intended to cement the ambiguity surrounding the murder case, but rests on a coincidence so far-fetched that the ambiguity instead collapses. The book might have been better without it.
The Colour of Murder was reissued as a British Library Crime Classic in 2018, so it wasn't just a prize-winner in 1957; it is esteemed today. Both accolades deserve inquiry.
Why did it win a prize in 1957? Perhaps because of the forensic focus on the states of mind of the central suspect. The introduction to the BL edition highlights this as a novelty at the time, and certainly in comparison to novels from the "Golden Age" of crime novels, there is considerable depth, nuance, and plausibility to the psychological characterisation. This is mostly in the first part of the book. The trial part is nicely done, and I might have appreciated it more had I not recently read Grierson's similar, better effort. The introduction claims that Symons uses this part to "explore the nature of justice", but I can't say I found much exploration worth considering.
Symons' reputation in the world of crime fiction now rests mostly on his history of the genre, Bloody Murder, rather than on his own novels. So why reissue this one (and one other, The Belting Inheritance)? While it certainly has merits as a novel, it's also fascinating as a social document of the 1950s. The introduction notes this, but in relation to concrete facts about the prevalence of "television parties" and racism. I was more struck by what the book tells about the claustrophobic, small-minded, straitened nature of lower-middle-class 1950s life: among other elements, how painfully important it was to cleanse oneself from any taint of unsuitable social origins or associations, and how temptingly easy it was to re-associate oneself to disastrous effect. If you ever want to read a novel that makes you both aware and glad that the not-too-distant past really is the past, this is one to consider.… (altro)