money in Wodehouse
Kurt & Nancy Harris
in Wodehouse. I still haven't straightened out all the references to quids,
bobs, half crowns, and whatever. I know that I for one would be so grateful
if someone out there could give us a complete lesson on the old money system
in England including the many slang terms for various denominations.
Thanks, as always,
the pink chap
John Winters
The old money system in the UK was:
12 pennies to the shilling
20 shillings to the pound
21 shillings to the guinea
A quid is slang for a pound (still).
A bob was slang for a shilling.
A crown was five shillings so a half crown was 2 shillings and sixpence.
Confusingly, new coins have been minted recently called crowns but with
a face value of 5 pounds (instead of 5 shillings).
A florin was a coin worth 2 shillings.
There were also 10 bob (shilling) notes, sixpences, thruppences (3 pence)
halfpennies and farthings (quarter pennies). Going back a bit there also
used to be a double florin (4 shillings).
The big mistake our government made back in the early seventies was thinking
that the basic unit of currency in the UK was the pound. It wasn't - the
basic unit of currency was the shilling. The government did away with the
shilling and introduced the new penny (100 new pennies to the pound). The
result was total confusion because no-one had any feel for how much things
cost any more and it gave an amazing fillip to inflation. No country in
the world had such a high-value basic unit of currency and the pound
not unnaturally slid down to take the place of the shilling.
The Australians did it much better, sliding the dollar in at the 10 bob
mark and essentially preserving the shilling as 10 cents.
John
--
John Winters. Wallingford, Oxon, England.
The Linux Emporium - the source for Linux CDs in the UK
See http://www.linuxemporium.co.uk/
an...@hulot.demon.co.uk
number of slang terms that became attached to it. Many of these would
be regional. Here are some of the more common and widespread ones (I'm
not sure which, if any, appear in the PGW canon):
A penny might be referred to as a "copper". However, in the plural the
term "coppers" usually meant "an unspecified, but small, amount of
money". You wouldn't use the word to refer to a definite amount such
as "four coppers".
A sixpenny piece was a "tanner".
Occasionally, five shillings would be termed a "dollar". More commonly,
two-and-sixpence (half a crown) might be called "half a dollar".
The way the units were used in speech, and sometimes in writing, could
be quite confusing. It was quite common to say "eighteen pence" instead
of "one shilling and sixpence", or "fifty shillings" might be said,
meaning "two pounds ten".
And then there are the terms for larger sums of money, most of which
have a whiff of the racetrack or the criminal fraternity about them,
such as "pony" (25 pounds) and "monkey" (500 pounds).
I expect you Americans are rather glad of the passages in books such
as "Something Fresh", where PGW translates Sterling prices into
sensible, base-10 American dollars - the rent of Ashe Marson's
apartment is described in such terms, if I recall.
A Wet Hen
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
John Winters
[snip]
>The way the units were used in speech, and sometimes in writing, could
>be quite confusing. It was quite common to say "eighteen pence" instead
>of "one shilling and sixpence", or "fifty shillings" might be said,
>meaning "two pounds ten".
Hence my assertion that the basic unit of currency was the shilling.
Things carried on being expressed in shillings for quite a long way
up - an item of furniture might easily be priced at say, "110/-",
which means 110 shillings. In day to day transactions, people practically
never used pounds.
Neil Midkiff
Kurt & Nancy Harris <har...@singnet.com.sg> wrote:
:Is anyone else confused and in the dark when it comes to references to money
:in Wodehouse. I still haven't straightened out all the references to quids,
:bobs, half crowns, and whatever.
Others have summarized details of the British traditional, pre-decimal
currency system, so I won't be repeating the details of farthings and
florins. The question most of us have in mind when we read the Wodehouse
stories, though, is how much the sums referred to are worth in today's money.
This is a vexed question, because these values change over time, and it's
hard to know exactly what Wodehouse meant in terms of time placement for the
stories. When he writes a Drones story in the 1930s, for example, does he
assume a pre-WWI economy as well as a prewar social milieu? I think he
probably does. But other stories, such as _Ring for Jeeves/The Return of
Jeeves_, clearly are placed in a later economic situation.
Still, let's have a stab at it in general terms. My data come from a House
of Commons report (99/20) on the value of the pound over time. Prices were
reasonably stable from 1900 to 1914, which was the era when Wodehouse was
first working for a living; the pound then was worth about 65 pounds in 1998
buying power.
Just as a reality check, we can do a transatlantic conversion: the pound was
worth about $4.80 on the pre-WWI gold standard. Data from the Columbia
Journalism Review web site give a factor of 20 in dollar inflation, 1900-
1998, so that's $96 recently, which is not all that far from 65 pounds. All
these figures are low-accuracy because it's very hard to find a comparable
"market basket" of goods actually purchased over long time spans.
So for the early stories and, probably, the world of the Drones as well,
these rough, rounded figures will help:
# is the best I can do in ASCII for the pound sterling symbol.
UK 1900s US 1900s UK 1998 US 1998
1 penny $0.02 27 p $0.41
6 d 0.12 #1.62 2.50
1 shilling 0.24 3.25 5.00
2/6 (half crown) 0.60 8.13 12.00
5 bob 1.20 16.25 24.00
10 bob 2.40 32.50 48.00
1 pound 4.80 65.00 96.00
Fiver 24.00 #325 $500 (rounding a bit again)
Tenner #650 $1000
Fifty quid #3250 $5000
and so on.
When I first did this calculation, it surprised me how lavish the Drones were
with their bets and how casual they were about touching their friends for
relatively large sums. This was surely deliberate on Wodehouse's part in
establishing their "idle rich" situation, and if we fail to take these
inflationary adjustments into account, we lose some of the effect of the
stories.
If you want to work out similar charts for later periods, the pound sterling
conversion factors are summarized below. There was a quick inflationary
spike in the WWI through early Twenties period, then deflation in the
Thirties.
1915 55
1920 24
1930 35
1940 30
1950 18
1960 13
1970 9
1974 6
1998 1
I don't have a chart of US/UK conversion rates over time, but if you bring
the pounds to modern times then convert to dollars you won't be too far off.
-Neil Midkiff
John Winters
Neil Midkiff <mid...@netcom.com> wrote:
[snip]
>If you want to work out similar charts for later periods, the pound sterling
>conversion factors are summarized below. There was a quick inflationary
>spike in the WWI through early Twenties period, then deflation in the
>Thirties.
>
>1915 55
>1920 24
>1930 35
>1940 30
>1950 18
>1960 13
>1970 9
>1974 6
>1998 1
As an interesting (IMNSHO) aside, my house was built in 1905 and I bought it
in 1997. The only other time it changed hands was in 1950. I'm lucky enough
to have all the old transfer documents and I found it rather interesting
that the ratio of 1905 price to 1950 price is almost exactly the same
as the 1950 to 1997 ratio. I would have expected something different
given the ludicrous inflation of the 1970s followed by silly house price
inflation in the late '80s. It's also noteworthy that each time it
changed hands the stamp duty exceeded the previous purchase price!
Duncan Snowden
> halfpennies
It should also be noted that halfpenny is pronounced "haypney"
(*roughly* - I don't want to get into another argument about variations
in accent :-).
--
Duncan Snowden.
Frank R.A.J. Maloney
That brings to mind a question that comes to me once in a while. When I read
"twopence" or threepence", do I pronounce it, mentally or otherwise, "tuppence"
or "thruppence", as appropriate, regardless of social class?
A small matter, but one does endeavor to give satisfaction.
Mortimer Rackstraw, the Great Boloni
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney
fr...@aol.com
http://hometown.aol.com/frajm/default.htm
"All over the room throats were being strained and minds broadened."
charles stone-tolcher
Threepence are pronounced tuppence and thruppence.
Pillingshot
"Frank R.A.J. Maloney" <mortimer...@aol.comnojunk> wrote in message
news:20000831173503...@ng-fg1.aol.com...
Charles D. Cunningham
Charles Cunningham
In article <39aef11c$0$26535$7f31...@news01.syd.optusnet.com.au>,
csto...@optusnet.com.au says...
bob...@my-deja.com
cunn...@jmu.edu (Charles D. Cunningham) wrote:
> Aren't there some characters in literature named Tommy and Tuppence?
Agatha Christie characters -- a married couple who are part detective /
part secret agents of some nebulous sort.
They age more than most such characters -- they're introduced as young
singles at loose ends immediately after WWI, team up to solve some
mystery, get married, and are rather elderly in their later stories.
Never as popular as Miss Marple or Poirot, but they appeared in several
short stories and novels.
I bring their aging up, because Christie commented on a problem that
she caused for herself by having both Poirot and Marple be elderly when
she created them, and then still working decades later -- Poirot was a
retired Belgian police detective and WWI refugee, so how could he still
be solving crimes in the 1970s?
I recall a recent post here commenting on PGW having the same
difficulty with Lord Emsworth.
Bob Houk
Semi-George Finch
Jack Cerf
Tommy and Tuppence Beresford are the husband and wife heroes of several
Agatha Christie novels written between 1922 and 1974. "Tuppence" is
the schoolgirl nickname of Prudence Beresford, nee Cowley. Her
inseparable best girlfriend's last name was Playne. As a play on the
phrase "penny plain, tuppence colored," she was nicknamed Penny Playne
and Prudence inevitably nicknamed Tuppence.
http://www.nd.edu/~rwoodbur/christie/christie.htm
http://christie.mysterynet.com/essentials/frame_essentials.shtml?crime
According to Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (14th ed.), the
phrase originated in the East End shop of a maker of toy theatres. The
scenery and characters for each play were printed on thick cardbord and
sold for 1d if plain for coloring and 2d if already colored. R.L.
Stevenson wrote an essay on these toy theatres in 1884, titled "Penny
Plain, Twopence Colored," and I suspect that's how the phrase got into
general use.
http://www.britannica.com/seo/t/toy-theatre/
Richard Herring
<cunn...@jmu.edu> wrote
>Aren't there some characters in literature named Tommy and Tuppence?
Agatha Christie. I don't know if that counts as literature.
--
Reggie "Kipper" Herring <mailto:ric...@clupeid.demon.co.uk>
Augustus Fink-Nottle
> Charles Cunningham
Tommy and Tuppence Beresford are two (or one) of the lesser Agatha Christie
characters. Most T&T mysteries are weak as water when it comes to plots and
I used to dislike the duo. But last week, after watching one of Christie's
'Partners in Crime' mysteries where Tuppence is played so charmingly by one
very bubbly Francesca Annis, I was forced to review my opinion. Though I
still think that Tommy is a bit of a thickie sometimes.
pip-pip,
Gussie
john wolfe
bob...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > Aren't there some characters in literature named Tommy and Tuppence?
>
> Agatha Christie characters -- a married couple who are part detective /
> part secret agents of some nebulous sort.
>
> They age more than most such characters
>
> I bring their aging up, because Christie commented on a problem that
> she caused for herself by having both Poirot and Marple be elderly when
> she created them, and then still working decades later -- Poirot was a
> retired Belgian police detective and WWI refugee, so how could he still
> be solving crimes in the 1970s?
>
> I recall a recent post here commenting on PGW having the same
> difficulty with Lord Emsworth.
And don't forget Donald Duck and his nephews and cousins and.......
*D'ont forget CARL BARKS, the great artist, who died shortly ago. Like PGW he
only spread sweetness and light. He made a lot of people happy, at least for a
while. Can you say anything better about a man?
John Knatchbull-Huguesen
charles stone-tolcher
this book of essays he puts forward a good argument that the complete
Blandings saga is set between 1914 (Something Fresh) and 1926 (Sunset at
Blandings). He also dates the Jeeves and Wooster story: Aunts Aren't
Gentlemen as 1929. I must say that when I read a majority of Wodehouse I
imagine the setting in the 1920s -30s.
Pillingshot
<bob...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:8pb8le$6pn$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
Anne Cotton
pair of young newlyweds (well, fairly new) who set up a
detective agency. Their nicknames were Tommy and Tuppence.
Lady Bassett (who, if you will recall, is an avid mystery reader)
Charles D. Cunningham <cunn...@jmu.edu> wrote in message
news:39b91f12$1...@pigeon.jmu.edu...
bob...@my-deja.com
"charles stone-tolcher" <cstone20opyusnet.com.au> wrote:
> JHC Morris wrote a natty little book entitled "Thank You Wodehouse"
and in
> this book of essays he puts forward a good argument that the complete
> Blandings saga is set between 1914 (Something Fresh) and 1926 (Sunset
at
> Blandings). He also dates the Jeeves and Wooster story: Aunts Aren't
> Gentlemen as 1929. I must say that when I read a majority of Wodehouse
I
> imagine the setting in the 1920s -30s.
I agree -- I tend to think 20s, although Spode/Mosley brings us into the
mid-thirties.
There is an occasional "modern" mention in some of the stories written
in the 60s or so -- though I can't think of an example at present, and
in any case they're easy enough to ignore.
Bob Houk
bob...@my-deja.com
> And don't forget Donald Duck and his nephews and cousins and.......
>
> *D'ont forget CARL BARKS, the great artist, who died shortly ago.
Like PGW he
> only spread sweetness and light. He made a lot of people happy, at
least for a
> while. Can you say anything better about a man?
>
> John Knatchbull-Huguesen
Barks was a genius. I give him much of the credit for teaching me what
fun reading could be, and for broadening my interests -- his stories
were full of references to archeology, mythology, and history. (If
anyone comes across a copy of the Junior Woodchucks' Guidebook in your
travels through used book stores, please let me know -- I give all of
which I am possessed for it.
I think Donald and the boys (who were not ties too much to specific
events) have less of a problem with time than Scrooge, who made his
initial fortune in the Klondike gold rush. I remember as a kid working
out his age and then shrugging off the improbable result.
The same problem of course exists with any popular long-running series,
but if the readers like the series and characters they're willing to
ignore the contradictions.
Bob Houk
Alan Follett
bob...@my-deja.com wrote:
> "charles stone-tolcher"
> <cstone20opyusnet.com.au> wrote:
<snip>
>> I must say that when I read a majority
>> of Wodehouse I imagine the setting in
>> the 1920s -30s.
> I agree -- I tend to think 20s, although
> Spode/Mosley brings us into the mid-
> thirties. There is an occasional "modern"
> mention in some of the stories written in
> the 60s or so -- though I can't think of an
> example at present, and in any case they're
> easy enough to ignore.
What ho, still-nomless one;
One modern touch in the later stories is that characters sometimes fly
the Atlantic rather than travelling by ship. Indeed, in the 1970 novel
_The Girl in Blue_, the female lead, Jane Hunnicutt, is an air hostess.
The 1964 short story 'Bingo Bans the Bomb' centers on contemporary
protest politics. And the 1966 novelette _Life With Freddie_ lists
among Freddie Threepwood's triumphs the placement of Donaldson's Dog Joy
with the Liverpudlian merchant firm of Beatle, Beatle and Beatle.
Television comes in for surprisingly little mention in Wodehouse, but in
the 1953 _Ring for / Return of Jeeves_ we learn that Rowcester (or it
may be Towcester) Abbey has a television set, which goes on the blink
just before the running of the Derby. The same book contains a passing
atomic bomb reference, in Chapter Two:
'"You know what this house wants?" he [Rory Carmoyle] proceeded. "An
atom bomb, dropped carefully on the roof of the main banqueting hall.
[....] It would be the making of the old place. Put it right in no
time. Still, atom bombs cost money, so I suppose that's out of the
question."'
Ta!
Le Vicomte de Blissac
The Mixer
>
>
>
> One modern touch in the later stories is that characters sometimes fly
> the Atlantic rather than travelling by ship. Indeed, in the 1970 novel
> _The Girl in Blue_, the female lead, Jane Hunnicutt, is an air hostess.
>
> The 1964 short story 'Bingo Bans the Bomb' centers on contemporary
> protest politics. And the 1966 novelette _Life With Freddie_ lists
> among Freddie Threepwood's triumphs the placement of Donaldson's Dog Joy
> with the Liverpudlian merchant firm of Beatle, Beatle and Beatle.
>
> Television comes in for surprisingly little mention in Wodehouse, but in
> the 1953 _Ring for / Return of Jeeves_ we learn that Rowcester (or it
> may be Towcester) Abbey has a television set, which goes on the blink
> just before the running of the Derby. The same book contains a passing
> atomic bomb reference, in Chapter Two:
>
> '"You know what this house wants?" he [Rory Carmoyle] proceeded. "An
> atom bomb, dropped carefully on the roof of the main banqueting hall.
> [....] It would be the making of the old place. Put it right in no
> time. Still, atom bombs cost money, so I suppose that's out of the
> question."'
>
> Ta!
> Le Vicomte de Blissac
Veek, old lad, the above book also contains Jeeves' pithy summing up of
the activities of the post-war Labour government in Britain. While I
don't have a copy of the book in front of me, going from memory he said
something like, "We are now living in the welfare state, which means,
broadly speaking, that everyone is completely destitute."
He no doubt threw in a few 'sirs' or 'my lords' to stay in character but
I think it was safe to say he was speaking on behalf of his creator.
Honk-honk,
The Mixer
John Winters
Alan Follett <AFol...@webtv.net> wrote:
[snip]
>Television comes in for surprisingly little mention in Wodehouse,
Once you've read Plum's views on television it becomes less surprising.
Anton Sherwood
: Veek, old lad, the above book also contains Jeeves' pithy summing up
: of the activities of the post-war Labour government in Britain. While
: I don't have a copy of the book in front of me, going from memory he
: said something like, "We are now living in the welfare state, which
: means, broadly speaking, that everyone is completely destitute."
Something remarkably like that, yes.
Oddly enough I have, by mere chance, a copy of that book in front
of me - well, to be strictly fair, that it is in front of me is due
to a certain element of intent, but that it was a couple of yards to
my right a couple of minutes ago was less intentional, if you gather
my meaning. Quoth Jeeves (to Captain Biggar):
"A house such as Towcester Abbey, in these days is not an asset, sir,
it is a liability. I fear that your long residence in the East has
rendered you not quite abreast of the changed conditions prevailing
in your native land. Socialistic legislation has sadly depleted the
resources of England's hereditary aristocracy. We are living now in
what is known as the Welfare State, which means - broadly - that
everybody is completely destitute."
One might observe that Mr Wodehouse swapped passports
soon after this was published.
--
Anton Sherwood -- br0...@p0b0x.com -- http://ogre.nu/
Anton Sherwood
: There is an occasional "modern" mention in some of the stories
: written in the 60s or so -- though I can't think of an example
: at present, and in any case they're easy enough to ignore.
My favorite anachronism is in _Cocktail Time_:
Bastable's novel appears in a cover adorned with
the image of a monocled youth dancing the rock'n'roll.
an...@hulot.demon.co.uk
A Wet Hen
In article <39aef11c$0$26535$7f31...@news01.syd.optusnet.com.au>,
"charles stone-tolcher" <cstone20opyusnet.com.au> wrote:
> Rackstraw my lad, You are correct in your assumption that Twopence and
> Threepence are pronounced tuppence and thruppence.
>
> Pillingshot
>
Jack Cerf
an...@hulot.demon.co.uk wrote:
> Or, less commonly but nevertheless confusingly, "thrippence".
>
> A Wet Hen
>
> In article <39aef11c$0$26535$7f31...@news01.syd.optusnet.com.au>,
> "charles stone-tolcher" <cstone20opyusnet.com.au> wrote:
> > Rackstraw my lad, You are correct in your assumption that Twopence
and
> > Threepence are pronounced tuppence and thruppence.
> >
Paul Sexton
<jack...@yahoo.com> writes
>In article <8pi8or$pko$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> an...@hulot.demon.co.uk wrote:
>> Or, less commonly but nevertheless confusingly, "thrippence".
>>
>> A Wet Hen
>>
>> In article <39aef11c$0$26535$7f31...@news01.syd.optusnet.com.au>,
>> "charles stone-tolcher" <cstone20opyusnet.com.au> wrote:
>> > Rackstraw my lad, You are correct in your assumption that Twopence
>and
>> > Threepence are pronounced tuppence and thruppence.
>> >
>But the silver 3d coin was pronounced "thrip'ny bit."
>
Indeed, "thrip'ny bits" or "thrup'ny bits" is still used as rhyming
slang by the rougher elements of society.
--
Paul Sexton Paul's Radio Museum
http://www.paulplu.demon.co.uk/radio/
Melissa D. Aaron
Augustus Fink-Nottle wrote:
I remember this when it came out. And heavens, does that date me. (The
television series, not the book).
One thing that is a bit interesting about *Partners in Crime* is that each of
the stories is modelled on a different detective-or rather, Tommy and Tuppence
take different detectives as models every time. Sometimes the detectives are
still popular--as with GK Chesterton's Father Brown. But there are also
detectives such as the Old Man With The String who have pretty much fallen
into obscurity and are only remembered as a footnote to Christie's book, which
was written in the thirties.
And *therefore*, if you like Wodehouse and are trying to imagine what Bertie's
reading material is like (*Strychnine in the Soup*, *Blood on the Banister*)
Partners in Crime is a very valuable clue.
Sticks,
Gertrude Butterwick
bob...@my-deja.com
> And *therefore*, if you like Wodehouse and are trying to imagine what
Bertie's
> reading material is like (*Strychnine in the Soup*, *Blood on the
Banister*)
> Partners in Crime is a very valuable clue.
>
> Sticks,
>
> Gertrude Butterwick
Miss Butterwick:
The question is, where do I find The Faceless Fiend? Never have I come
across a Faceless Fiend in all my reading of sensational literature,
and yet Bertie, Lucky fellow, seemed to have them (not quite literally)
jumping out of the pages at him.
How I would like a good Faceless Fiend.
Strychnine in the Soup doesn't seem a likely source for an FF. One
would presume that the strychnine would be administered by a spouse,
the cook, the butler, or perhaps the ne'er do well nephew who dropped
by just before dinner to borrow a fiver and was turned down, resulting
in a rather loud argument in the study. (If it were a particularly
tricky sort of mystery, it would turn out that the strychnine was added
to the soup by Constable Eustace Oates, who has been calling on the
kitchen maid and who, left alone in the kitchen for just a moment, did
the foul deed. His motive was that the victim, who was also the local
magistrate, had given an unconscionably light sentence to a
disrespector of the law who had stolen the constable's helmet).
Not the right sort of crime for a Faceless Fiend, who is more likely to
slip up behind one on a lonely country path.
Can anyone direct me to an author who produces good Faceless Fiends?
Bob Houk
Bianchi
Greetings from Blandings on the Bayou: For Faceless Fiends, try Edgar Wallace.
You will find "She drove a fast car to the coast", An old man who lives over
the water and has a trap door in the floor that when murdered he can be dropped
down out of, trap doors in villians floors that drop down to the basement which
begins to fill up with water and all kinds of mysterious things. Lady Constance
The question is, where do I find The Faceless Fiend? Never have I come
across a Faceless Fiend in all my reading of sensational literature,
and yet Bertie, Lucky fellow, seemed to have them (not quite literally)
jumping out of the pages at him.
How I would like a good Faceless Fiend.
Strychnine in the Soup doesn't seem a likely source for an FF. One
would presume that the strychnine would be administered by a spouse,
the cook, the butler, or perhaps the ne'er do well nephew who dropped
by just before dinner to borrow a fiver and was turned down, resulting
in a rather loud argument in the study. (If it were a particularly
tricky sort of mystery, it would turn out that the strychnine was added
to the soup by Constable Eustace Oates, who has been calling on the
kitchen maid and who, left alone in the kitchen for just a moment, did
the foul deed. His motive was that the victim, who was also the local
magistrate, had given an unconscionably light sentence to a
disrespector of the law who had stolen the constable's helmet).
Not the right sort of crime for a Faceless Fiend, who is more likely to
slip up behind one on a lonely country path.
Can anyone direct me to an author who produces good Faceless Fiends?
Bob Houk
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
"..Greetings from Blandings on the Bayooo.."
bob...@my-deja.com
> Greetings from Blandings on the Bayou: For Faceless Fiends, try
Edgar
Wallace.
> You will find "She drove a fast car to the coast", An old man who
lives over
> the water and has a trap door in the floor that when murdered he can
be dropped
> down out of, trap doors in villians floors that drop down to the
basement which
> begins to fill up with water and all kinds of mysterious things. Lady
Constance
Thanks, Connie. You know, regardless of what that Beach guy says about
you, you're all right.
Actually, my tastes in the mystery field run more to the John Dickson
Carr and Edmund Crispen puzzle. But an occasional Faceless Fiend is good
for seasoning.
bob...@my-deja.com
*removethis*bhur...@pilot.msu.edu (Augustus Fink-Nottle) wrote:
> Faceless Fiends, I will remind you, are always the person you least
suspect.
> They go about causing international intrigues and secret societies
bent on
> anarchy. And after a hundred pages and fifty, it turns out to be none
other
> than your friendly professor or even (gasp) the Chief Inspector
himself !
>
> Be careful - EVERYONE is a suspect.
>
> pip-pip,
> The Man Who Was Thursday
>
> p.s. Eat this note after reading it. It must not fall into the wrong
hands.
>
Just to be safe, I read it with the monitor turned off.
George Mulliner
> p.s. Eat this note after reading it. It must not fall into the wrong hands.
Or how about the more modern "This note will self-destruct in five seconds?"
George Mulliner
George Mulliner
>
<snip>
> How I would like a good Faceless Fiend.
>
<snip>
>
> Can anyone direct me to an author who produces good Faceless Fiends?
>
> Bob Houk
>
Dear Mr. Almost-surely-George-Finch:
Professor Hilary Tamar speaks of "a nameless and faceless figure,
gliding silent and unseen through the night, leaving death behind" in
Sarah Caudwell's latest (and, unfortunately, final) book "The Sibyl in Her
Grave." Not quite a Faceless Fiend, but close enough for me. Besides, the
book is worth reading on its own merits.
George Mulliner
The Mixer
>
>
> Professor Hilary Tamar speaks of "a nameless and faceless figure,
> gliding silent and unseen through the night, leaving death behind" in
> Sarah Caudwell's latest (and, unfortunately, final) book "The Sibyl in Her
> Grave." Not quite a Faceless Fiend, but close enough for me. Besides, the
> book is worth reading on its own merits.
>
> George Mulliner
Didn't the title character in Mr Chester Gould's 'Dick Tracy' bump heads
with any number of faceless fiends?
The Mixer
Augustus Fink-Nottle
>The question is, where do I find The Faceless Fiend? Never have I come
>across a Faceless Fiend in all my reading of sensational literature,
>and yet Bertie, Lucky fellow, seemed to have them (not quite literally)
>jumping out of the pages at him.
>
>How I would like a good Faceless Fiend.
Faceless Fiends, I will remind you, are always the person you least suspect.
They go about causing international intrigues and secret societies bent on
anarchy. And after a hundred pages and fifty, it turns out to be none other
than your friendly professor or even (gasp) the Chief Inspector himself !
Be careful - EVERYONE is a suspect.
pip-pip,
The Man Who Was Thursday
p.s. Eat this note after reading it. It must not fall into the wrong hands.
bob...@my-deja.com
> Dear Mr. Almost-surely-George-Finch:
>
> Professor Hilary Tamar speaks of "a nameless and faceless figure,
> gliding silent and unseen through the night, leaving death behind" in
> Sarah Caudwell's latest (and, unfortunately, final) book "The Sibyl in
Her
> Grave." Not quite a Faceless Fiend, but close enough for me. Besides,
the
> book is worth reading on its own merits.
>
> George Mulliner
Dear Mr.
Mulliner-Whose-Dread-of-Mr-Pastaceli-As-Your-Own-Personal-Faceless-Fiend
-Diminishes-with-Each-Page-of-The-Small-Bachelor-That-I-Read:
Thank you. I've never read any of Sarah Caudwell. I'll give her a shot
(so to speak).
john wolfe
Augustus Fink-Nottle wrote:
> Faceless Fiends, I will remind you, are always the person you least suspect.
> They go about causing international intrigues and secret societies bent on
> anarchy. And after a hundred pages and fifty, it turns out to be none other
> than your friendly professor or even (gasp) the Chief Inspector himself !
Oh, but that's nothing compared to Agatha Christie's clever and tricky way
of making it absolutely impossible to the most experienced reader to guess who
the faceless murderer was: In one of her books (I forget the title) we learn on
the last page the nefarious deed was committed by the friendly country doctor -
a Watson-like figure, who does everything to help the police inspector, and also
the *I-NARRATOR* of the book (who thinks about all sorts of things, including
the problem of "whodunnit", but never once about his personal involvement in the
case). Can anyone beat that?
(I can see only one possibilty: the writer as the murderer. But this idea is
*mine*. No copyright violations!!)
John Knatchbull-Huguesen
Bill Deeck
know in advance who did it. There have been a number of narrator-did-it
mysteries, though none quite so good as Christie's.
Alas, I believe your copyrighted idea was used in 1983 in AN OLD-FASHIONED
MYSTERY by Runa Fairleigh.
Constable Eustace Oates
"john wolfe" <jol...@t-online.de> wrote in message
news:39C398DD...@t-online.de...
>
>
> Augustus Fink-Nottle wrote:
>
> > Faceless Fiends, I will remind you, are always the person you least
suspect.
> > They go about causing international intrigues and secret societies bent
on
> > anarchy. And after a hundred pages and fifty, it turns out to be none
other
> > than your friendly professor or even (gasp) the Chief Inspector himself
!
>
Augustus Fink-Nottle
> Oh, but that's nothing compared to Agatha Christie's clever and tricky way
>of making it absolutely impossible to the most experienced reader to guess who
>the faceless murderer was: In one of her books (I forget the title) we learn on
>the last page the nefarious deed was committed by the friendly country doctor -
>a Watson-like figure, who does everything to help the police inspector, and
>also the *I-NARRATOR* of the book (who thinks about all sorts of things, including
>the problem of "whodunnit", but never once about his personal involvement in
> the case). Can anyone beat that?
I declare that Christie was beaten by none other than the Master himself.
And what a plot, Sir! Impossible to expect, leave alone suspect. Not only
is it a blueprint for a faceless fiend, but it goes a step further and
creates the first characterless fiend.
------------------------------------------------------------------
If I were writing a mystery story, I would go boldly out for the big
sensation. [...] Here are the last few paragraphs of a little thing I have
been turning over in my mind against the time when I myself fall a victim to
the epidemic.
"You say, Jerningham," I gasped, "that you have solved this inscrutable
problem? You really know who it was that put the puncture in Sir Ralph?"
Travers Jerningham nodded curtly. I was astonished to see that he
displayed none of the satisfaction which one would naturally have
expected. There was a cloud on his forehead and his thin mouth had
drawn itself into a tight line.
"I do," he said.
"But you seem gloomy, Jerningham - moody, why is this?"
"Because it is impossible to bring the criminals to justice."
"Criminals? Was there, then, more than one?"
"There were two. Two of the blackest-hearted menaces to Society that
ever clutched a knife-handle. One held Sir Ralph down, the other did
the stabbing."
"But if you are so sure of this, how is it that you cannot give the
scoundrels their just deserts?"
Travers Jerningham laughed a bitter laugh.
"Because, my dear fellow, they aren't in the book at all. The fiends
were too cunning to let themselves get beyond the title page. The
murderers of Sir Ralph Rackstraw were Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton."
THE END
That would be something like a punch. But the next thing that would happen
would be the usual flood of imitations. Somebody would write a thriller in
which the crime was traced to Otis and Googe, Bespoke Printers, London,
Harringay and Glasgow; and then somebody else would hit on the author's
best friend, J. B. Stokes, without whose never failing sympathy and
encouragement this book would not have been written; and so on and so on.
You cannot copyright an idea, and times have become so hard for
thriller-writers that they are after any possible new murderer like a pack
of wolves.
---------------------------------
Boggles the imagination, what?
- Gussie
Frank R.A.J. Maloney
to 1279 along with the years during which each was issued, go to
http://www.peak.org/~jeremy/dictionary/money_uk.html
One of the many interesting bits is that the last guinea coin was issued in
1813, even though even now, as I understand, prices for horses and professional
services are still expressed in guineas.
Mortimer Rackstraw, the Great Boloni
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney
fr...@aol.com
http://hometown.aol.com/frajm/default.htm
"All over the room throats were being strained and minds broadened."
Anton Sherwood
: I won't provide the Christie title in case someone might
: be disappointed to know in advance who did it.
Is it a spoiler to say that "The Singing Detective" alludes thereto?
: There have been a number of narrator-did-it
: mysteries, though none quite so good as Christie's.
"Kind Hearts and Coronets" has its points.
Anton Sherwood
: > gliding silent and unseen through the night, leaving death behind"
: > in Sarah Caudwell's latest (and, unfortunately, final) book "The
: Thank you. I've never read any of Sarah Caudwell.
: I'll give her a shot (so to speak).
For what little it's worth, I can recommend her first two,
_Thus was Adonis murdered_ and _The shortest way to Hades_.
The next, _The Sirens sang of murder_, disappointed me;
perhaps because I didn't care for the central character.
The recurring characters in these novels, you see, are Professor
Tamar (the narrator) and five young lawyers, and in each of them
one of the five takes a trip to the Continent and has an Adventure.
The women of the group get their turns in the first two, and the
next gives us Michael Cantrip, the class clown, who is not nearly
as well written. (Which suddenly reminds me of a cartoon of Ziggy
on a psychoanalyst's couch, and the latter saying "You shouldn't
let it get you down: a lot of cartoon characters are not very well
drawn.")
So in _Sibyl_ does Ragwort get his turn?
A snatch of dialogue from _Adonis_ (by way of memory,
as I can't find the books now) may suggest the flavour ...
(Julia Larwood has been arrested in Venice for the murder of
Edward Watson; she complicated matters by denying she knew him.)
"If you were to wake up with a young man of ethereal beauty,
would it ever cross your mind that his name was Watson?"
"The possibility is in my case remote; but it is a
perfectly respectable name, such as anyone might have."
"Precisely," Julia sighed.
George Mulliner
> _Thus was Adonis murdered_ and _The shortest way to Hades_.
> The next, _The Sirens sang of murder_, disappointed me;
> perhaps because I didn't care for the central character.
>
I'm a little partial to Michael Cantrip because he's the only one from
Cambridge, which, possibly because of its contributions to science, I like
better than Oxford. I agree that Caudwell's characters are not written,
in the sense that we know very little about what they do when they're not
at the Corkscrew or at 62 (or 63) Lincoln's Inn. What I read Caudwell for
is the banter between the characters and her style of writing, which is
very similar to that of Plum.
>
> So in _Sibyl_ does Ragwort get his turn?
>
Actually, _Sibyl_ is more about Julia's aunt Regina, and a significant
portion of the book is in the form of letters written by her to Julia.
Ragwort does get to go to Europe, but only for a short while. I would
describe his trip to Europe as an experience rather than an adventure.
George Mulliner
ctbi...@earthlink.net
<jol...@t-online.de> wrote:
>Augustus Fink-Nottle wrote:
>
>> Faceless Fiends, I will remind you, are always the person you least suspect.
>> They go about causing international intrigues and secret societies bent on
>> anarchy. And after a hundred pages and fifty, it turns out to be none other
>> than your friendly professor or even (gasp) the Chief Inspector himself !
>
> Oh, but that's nothing compared to Agatha Christie's clever and tricky way
>of making it absolutely impossible to the most experienced reader to guess who
>the faceless murderer was: In one of her books (I forget the title) we learn on
>the last page the nefarious deed was committed by [snip, for the square
bat] >Can anyone beat that?
>
> (I can see only one possibilty: the writer as the murderer. But this idea is
>*mine*. No copyright violations!!)
PGW is ahead of you. He posits the *publisher* as murderer, in one of his
intros. I appeal to those whose memories havent' been afftected by riotous
living to supply the quotation.
Gally