Julian Symons
Personal Information
Description
Julian Symons's work has probably been as varied as that of any living writer. He made a reputation before the Second World War as editor of Twentieth Century Verse, a 'little' magazine which published most of the young poets outside the immediate Auden circle. After that he put his foot on what he calls the treadmill of murder by publishing a comic crime story, which he now regards as so bad that he won't allow it to be reprinted. Several crime stories later, he can look back on two, The Colour of Murder and The Progress of Crime, that have received awards as the best books of their year. He still keeps a toe in what he regards as the generally shallow waters of recent poetry, but also has a quite separate reputation as a biographer (of figures as diverse as Thomas Carlyle and Horatio Bottomley) and a social and military historian (he has written a full-length study of the 1926 General Strike and the only book about the expedition to relieve Gordon at Khartoum). Despite the diversity of his interests, he has never wavered in his enthusiasm and appetite for crime stories. Hence Bloody Murder, a study of the genre. His latest publications are The Players and the Game, The Plot Against Roger Rider and A Three Pipe Problem.
Books
The Detections of Francis Quarles (Lost Classics)
In 1950 for a series of short stories for London's Evening Standard newspaper, Julian Symons invented Private Detective Francis Quarles. After engaging in mysterious activities during the Second World War, Quarles opened an office in Trafalgar Square from where he investigates puzzles ranging from robbery to murder. Contains 42 previously uncollected stories.
Show Business Is Murder
Credit to Shakespeare [Short story] by Julian Symons What'sisname by George Baxt The Kumquats Affair by Francis M. Jr. Nevins Sock Finish by Robert Bloch Cliffhanger by Georgiana Eidukas Bad Actor by Gary Brandner Just a Gag by Tex Hill The Confrontation Scene by William Bankier Ten Percent of Murder [Short Story] by Henry Slesar Murder in the Movies by Karl Detzer The Lithuanian Eraser Mystery by Jon L. Breen Death at the Opera [Short story] by Michael Underwood On Different Tracks by Michael Scott Cain The Decline and Fall of Norbert Tuffy by Ron Goulart The Spy Who Stayed Up All Night [Short story] by Edward D. Hoch The Acting of a Dreadful Thing by Lionel Booker The Adventure of the Hanging Acrobat [Short story] by Ellery Queen Mystery Tune [short story] by Isaac Asimov
Ellery Queen's Eyes of Mystery
The Penguin Classic Crime Ombnibus
Little-known stories by 25 of the grand masters of the genre. According to the book cover "All the famous names are here - but not the stories you might expect."
The Kentish manor murders
Un pastiche de Sherlock Holmes autour d'un manuscrit inédit de Conan Doyle.