Christopher St. John Sprigg
Personal Information
Description
Until recently Christopher St John Sprigg was largely remembered for his Marxist writing and poetry, all of which was published posthumously under the name Christopher Caudwell. The reprinting of Death of an Airman by the British Library in 2015 has helped revive interest in his fiction. Christopher St John Sprigg (1907 - 1937) was born in London to a literate family of writers, journalists and editors. The youngest of three children, Sprigg attended Catholic boarding school for ten years, until a downturn in family finances prompted a departure from schooling at age 15. He immediately became a trainee reporter at the Yorkshire Observer where his father was then literary editor, and father and son lodged together in a boarding house in Bradford. In 1925 Sprigg joined his older brother Theo as the editing team of Airways magazine. During this time Sprigg also produced technical books and air adventures stores for Popular Flying magazine. He had a fondness for noms-de-plumes, writing adventure stores under the names ‘Arthur Cave’ and ‘Icarus’, using ‘St John Lewis’ for articles in Airways, and ‘Christopher Beaumont’ for his book reviews. Over a three year period, Sprigg wrote several detective stores stories, including Fatality in Fleet Street, The Perfect Alibi, Death of an Airman, and Death of a Queen. In 1935, he joined the Communist party and focused on Marxist writings. When the Spanish Civil War broke out, he drove an ambulance to Spain and joined the International Brigade. After four weeks of training and poorly armed, his unit was thrown into the Battle of the Jarama River in February 1937. He was killed in the first day of fighting, along with more than half of his battalion.
Books
Further studies in a dying culture
BEIN: Contains ms. notes by Josephine Herbst. (Za H418 Zz949S)BEIN: "Reprinted 1950"--T.p. verso. (Za H418 Zz949S).
Death of an Airman
"George Furnace, flight instructor at Baston Aero Club, dies instantly when his plane crashes into the English countryside. People who knew him are baffled - Furnace was a first-rate pilot, and the plane was in perfect condition - and the inquest records a verdict of death by misadventure. An Australian visitor to the aero club, Edwin Marriott, Bishop of Cootamundra, suspects that the true story is more complicated. Could this be a dramatic suicide - or even murder? Together with Inspector Bray of Scotland Yard, the intrepid bishop must uncover a cunning criminal scheme."--provided from Amazon.com.
The Six Queer Things
Desperate to escape living with her miserly uncle, Marjorie Easton eagerly accepts a job offer from the strange Michael Crispin despite knowing nothing of the employment except that it is well-paid and includes some kind of research. Much to her surprise, the “research” involves séances and requires Marjorie to develop her own psychic gifts to assist in communing with the dead. Soon she begins to suffer from terrible nightmares and seems on the verge of a nervous breakdown, but the real terror begins when Crispin dies under mysterious circumstances during one of the séances. Who is responsible? And what is the significance of the “six queer things” the police discover among his belongings after his death? A Golden Age mystery with echoes of the occult, The Six Queer Things (1937) was Christopher St. John Sprigg’s seventh and final novel, published posthumously after his death in the Spanish Civil War. This first-ever reprint of his scarcest novel features a reproduction of the original jacket art.