Dornford Yates was the pseudonym of the British novelist,
Cecil William Mercer (7 August 1885 – 5 March 1960), whose novels and short stories, some humorous (the
Berry books), some thrillers (the
Chandos books), were best-sellers in the twenty-one year
interwar periodThe interwar period is understood, within recent Western culture, to be the period between the end of the First World War and the beginning of the Second World War. This is also called the period between the wars or interbellum....
between the First and Second world wars.
The
pen nameA pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...
,
Dornford Yates, first in print in 1910, resulted from combining the surnames of his grandmothers — the paternal Eliza Mary Dornford, and the maternal Harriet Yates.
Early life
William (Bill) Mercer was born in
WalmerWalmer is a town in the district of Dover, Kent in England: located on the coast, the parish of Walmer is 6 miles north-east of Dover. Largely residential, its coastline and castle attract many visitors...
,
KentKent , originally Cantia, is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the River Thames estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent...
, the son of Cecil John Mercer (1850–1921) and Helen Wall (1858–1918). His father was a solicitor whose sister, Mary Frances, married Charles Augustus Munro; their son was
Hector Hugh MunroHector Hugh Munro , better known by the pen name Saki, was a British writer, whose witty and sometimes macabre stories satirized Edwardian society and culture. He is considered a master of the short story and is often compared to O. Henry and Dorothy Parker. His tales feature delicately drawn...
(the writer
SakiHector Hugh Munro , better known by the pen name Saki, was a British writer, whose witty and sometimes macabre stories satirized Edwardian society and culture. He is considered a master of the short story and is often compared to O. Henry and Dorothy Parker. His tales feature delicately drawn...
); Bill Mercer is said to have idolised his elder cousin.
Mercer attended St Clare preparatory school in Walmer from 1894 to 1899. The family moved from Kent to
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
when he joined
HarrowHarrow School, commonly known simply as "Harrow", is an independent school for boys situated in the town of Harrow, in north-west London. Harrow has educated boys since 1243 but was officially founded by John Lyon under a Royal Charter of Elizabeth I in 1572....
as a day boarder in 1899, his father selling his solicitor’s practice in Kent and setting up office in Carey Street. Leaving Harrow in 1903, he attended
University CollegeUniversity College , is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England...
,
OxfordThe University of Oxford , located in the UK city of Oxford, is the oldest surviving university in the English-speaking world and is regarded as one of the world's leading academic institutions. Although the exact date of foundation remains unclear, there is evidence of teaching there as far back...
in 1904 where he achieved a Third in Law.
At university, he was active in the
Oxford University Dramatic SocietyThe Oxford University Dramatic Society is the principal funding body and provider of theatrical services to the many independent student productions put on by students in Oxford, England...
(OUDS), becoming secretary in 1906 and president in 1907, his final year. He acted in the 1905 production of
AristophanesAristophanes , son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a prolific and much acclaimed comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays have come down to us virtually complete...
’
The CloudsThe Clouds is a comedy written by the celebrated playwright Aristophanes lampooning intellectual fashions in classical Athens. It was originally produced at the City Dionysia in 423 BC and it was not well received, coming last of the three plays competing at the festival that year...
, of which the
Times reviewer said: “
Among individual actors the best was Mr. C.W. Mercer, whose ‘Strepsiades’ was full of fun, and who possesses real comic talent.” After a small part in the 1906 production of
Measure for MeasureMeasure for Measure is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1603 or 1604. It was originally classified as a comedy, but is now also classified as one of Shakespeare's problem plays. Originally published in the First Folio of 1623, the play's first recorded performance was...
, in his final year, he appeared as ‘Demetrius’ in
A Midsummer Night's DreamA Midsummer Night's Dream is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare. It was suggested by "The Knight's Tale" from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales and written around 1594 to 1596...
, and as ‘Pedant’ in
The Taming of the ShrewThe Taming of the Shrew is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1594.The play begins with a framing device, often referred to as the Induction, in which a drunken tinker named Sly is tricked into thinking he is a nobleman by a mischievous Lord...
, the production included the professional actresses
Lily BraytonElizabeth "Lily" Brayton was an English actress, known for her performances in Shakespeare plays and for her nearly 2,000 performances in the World War I hit musical Chu Chin Chow.-Early years:...
as ‘Katherine’, and her sister Agnes as ‘Bianca’.
Among the many useful friends Mercer made in the OUDS were
Gervais RentoulSir Richard Gervais Squire Chittick Rentoul K.C.,M.A. , commonly known as Gervais Rentoul, was a British Conservative politician....
, who asked him to be his best man, and Lily Brayton's husband, actor
Oscar AscheJohn Stange Heiss Oscar Asche , better known as Oscar Asche, was an Australian actor, director and writer, best known for having written, directed, and acted in the record-breaking musical Chu Chin Chow, both on stage and film, and for acting in, directing, or producing many Shakespeare plays and...
, later producer of the play
KismetKismet is a musical written in 1953 by Robert Wright and George Forrest, adapted from the music of Alexander Borodin, and produced by Charles Lederer. The musical was adapted from the book by Charles Lederer and Luther Davis, based on the play by Edward Knoblock...
, and writer of
Chu Chin ChowChu Chin Chow is a musical comedy written, produced and directed by Oscar Asche, with music by Frederic Norton, based on the story of Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves...
. After university, Mercer took a caravanning holiday in
HampshireHampshire , sometimes historically Southamptonshire, Hamptonshire, , or the County of Southampton, is a county on the south coast of England. The county borders , Dorset, Wiltshire, Berkshire, Surrey and West Sussex...
, with Asche, Lily, Agnes, and another theatrical couple,
Matheson LangMatheson Alexander Lang was a Canadian-born stage and film actor and playwright in the early 20th century. He is best remembered for his performances roles in Great Britain in Shakespeare plays.-Biography:...
and his wife,
Hutin BrittonNelly Hutin Britton , usually credited as Hutin Britton was an English actress. She was best known for her performances in Shakespeare roles early in the 20th century.- Biography :...
; Asche and Lang recall that holiday in their respective memoirs.
Mercer’s third-class Oxford
law degreeA Law degree is the degree conferred on someone who successfully completes studies in law. However many law degrees are insufficient education for a license to practice law by the administrative body of that jurisdiction...
was insufficient to gain him traditional access to the
barBar in a legal context has three possible meanings: the division of a courtroom between its working and public areas; the process of qualifying to practice law; and the legal profession.-Courtroom division:The bar is a dividing line in a courtroom...
. However, in 1908 his father obtained his son a post as pupil to a prominent solicitor, H.G. Muskett, whose practice often required his appearing in court on behalf of the police commissioner. As Muskett’s pupil, Mercer saw much of the seedy side of London life, some of which is evident in his novels.
In 1909, he was called to the bar where he worked for several years. In his first memoirs,
As Berry & I Were Saying, he recalls his involvement in the trial of the poisoner
Hawley Harvey CrippenHawley Harvey Crippen , usually known as Dr. Crippen, was an American physician hanged in Pentonville Prison, London, England, on 23 November 1910, for the murder of his wife, Cora Henrietta Crippen. He has gone down in history as the first criminal to be captured with the aid of wireless...
, when he returned from acting with the
Old StagersThe Old Stagers is an amateur theatre group, founded in 1842 by Hon. Frederick Ponsonby and Charles Taylor. It claims to be the oldest surviving amateur dramatic company in the world, having staged its first shows in Canterbury in 1842. It has continued to give annual performances every year...
, at
CanterburyCanterbury lies at the heart of the City of Canterbury, a local government district of Kent, in South East England. It lies on the River Stour....
, to have first look at the legal brief. Mercer is in a photograph of the Bow Street Court committal proceedings, published in the
Daily Mirror of 30 August 1910. In his spare time, he wrote the short stories published in
PunchPunch was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire published from 1841 to 1992 and from 1996 to 2002. Punch material was also collected in book formats as early as the 1800s, including Pick of the Punch annuals with cartoons and text features, Punch and the War a 1941 collection of...
,
The Red Magazine,
Pearsons Magazine, and the
Windsor Magazine, maintaining a relationship with this last until the end of the 1930s. He also assisted in the writing of
What I Know, the memoirs of C.W. Stamper, who had been motor engineer to
King Edward VIIEdward VII was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death on 6 May 1910...
.
The Great War and afterwards
At the outbreak of the
Great WarWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
in 1914, Mercer joined the
County of London YeomanrySeveral British Army regiments have born the title County of London Yeomanry . Most have been mounted, then armoured regiments.-1st County of London Yeomanry:...
and was commissioned as Second Lieutenant. In 1915, his regiment left for
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia...
and, in November 1915 as part of the 8th Mounted Brigade, he was sent to the
Salonika/Macedonian frontThe Macedonian Front resulted from an attempt by the Allied Powers to aid Serbia, in the autumn of 1915, against the combined attack of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria. The expedition came too late and in insufficient force to prevent the fall of Serbia, and was complicated by the internal...
where the war was in stalemate. Suffering severe muscular rheumatism he was sent home in 1917 and, although he was still in uniform, the
War OfficeThe War Office was a department of the British Government, responsible for the administration of the British Army between the 17th century and 1963, when its functions were transferred to the Ministry of Defence...
did not again post him. He eventually left the army in 1919.
Since 1914, the Mercer family home had been “Elm Tree Road” in
St John's WoodSt John's Wood is a district of north-west London, England, in the City of Westminster, and at the north-west end of Regent's Park. It is approximately 2.5 miles north-west of Charing Cross. Once part of the Great Middlesex Forest, it was later owned by the Knights of St John of Jerusalem...
, where his friends Oscar and Lily Asche were close neighbours. In autumn of 1919, he and Asche combined to write the stage show
Eastward Ho!, but the production was not a great success and he did not again attempt to write for the stage. A frequent social - and then romantic - Elm Tree Road visitor was Bettine (Athalia) Stokes Edwards, an American girl in the
Chu Chin Chow cast (and daughter of Robert Ewing Edwards of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) who became Mercer’s first wife.
The New York Times announcement of their engagement (28 August 1919) states: “Mr & Mrs Glover Fitzhugh Perin of 57 West Fifty-eight street have announced the engagement of Mrs Perin’s oldest daughter Miss Bettine Stokes Edwards. . . .” suggesting that her father either was dead or divorced; her re-married mother then lived in New York City. Mercer and Bettine married at St James, Spanish Place, in the
MaryleboneMarylebone is an affluent, inner-city area of central London, located within the City of Westminster...
district of London, on 22 October 1919.
Mercer decided to not return to the bar, and to concentrate on his writing. He and Bettine lived in Elm Tree Road, where their only child, Richard, was born on 20 July 1920. After the Great War, many ex-officers found that the rise in the cost of living in London precluded maintaining the style of life of a gentleman to which they had become accustomed; some looked beyond England. In 1922, the Mercers emigrated to France, where it was possible to live more cheaply, and where the climate was kinder to Mercer’s muscular rheumatism.
French residence
They chose the resort town Pau, in the western
PyreneesThe Pyrenees are a range of mountains in southwest Europe that form a natural border between France and Spain...
, in the Basses–Pyrénées
département (now
Pyrénées-AtlantiquesPyrénées-Atlantiques is a department in the southwest of France which takes its name from the Pyrenees mountains and the Atlantic Ocean.- History :...
) — where lived a sizeable British expat colony, but when the Mercers moved in is unknown. In
Dornford Yates — A Biography (1982), A.J. Smithers reports “exactly how he hit upon the place is not clear”, but Pau figures several times in the memoirs he is presumed to have ghost-written for C.W. Stamper, and so that might be the answer — “anywhere good enough for
King Edward VIIEdward VII was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death on 6 May 1910...
was good enough for him”.
They rented the Villa Maryland, on Rue Forster, where Mercer proved an exacting husband, while Bettine was a social woman, and by 1929, the failure of their marriage was evident. Bettine had been indiscreet in her extra-marital romantic liaisons, and Mercer sued for divorce. Bettine did not defend, and the divorce was made absolute in September 1933. In the event, she returned to her family in the U.S.
Less than a year later, on 10 February 1934, at Chertsey Register office, Bill Mercer married Doreen Elizabeth Lucie Bowie, whom he met on a cruise in 1932. She was daughter of London solicitor D.M. Bowie of
Virginia WaterVirginia Water is an affluent village, a lake and, originally, a stream, the village being in the Runnymede Borough Council are in Surrey and the bodies of water stretching over the borders of Runnymede, Old Windsor and Sunninghill and Ascot, England....
. Elizabeth was twenty years younger than her new husband, who felt he had met the incarnation of his fictional “Jill Mansel”, thus did he call her “Jill” for the rest of his life. For him, Villa Maryland had many memories of Bettine, so he and Elizabeth decided to build a new house, named “Cockade”. They chose a spot twenty miles south of Pau, near
Eaux-BonnesEaux-Bonnes is a commune in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in south-western France.Nearby is the impressive villa Cockade, the construction of which is detailed in Dornford Yates's novel The House That Berry Built....
, on the route to the Spanish frontier, the project is related in
The House That Berry BuiltThe House That Berry Built is a humorous semi-autobiographical novel by Dornford Yates published in 1945 by Ward Lock & Co of London. It is a fictional recreation of the construction of the author's house, Cockade, in the commune of Eaux-Bonnes, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France.-Plot summary:This...
, wherein the name of the house is “Gracedieu” (God’s Grace). They did not enjoy long residence in Cockade.
With France falling to the
WehrmachtWehrmacht was the name of the unified armed forces of Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe ....
in June of 1940, the Mercers hurriedly arranged caretakers for Cockade, and then escaped the country — in company of visiting friends, Matheson Lang and wife — and traversed Spain
en route to Portugal. They subsequently took ship for South Africa, arriving in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, in 1941.
The Second World War and the Rhodesian years
C.W. Mercer was re-commissioned in the Royal Rhodesian Regiment, and attained the rank of
majorIn many European languages, the term Major is a military rank, implying seniority at one of usually various levels of rank. For example:*"General-Major" or "Major-General", denoting a senior ranking general officer....
. As the war concluded, the couple realised their plan of returning to Cockade — but were disappointed in the decrepitude of the house and the socially-conscious, post-war attitude of their one-time servants. After some months, the Mercers obtained exit visas and returned to Umtali,
Southern RhodesiaWhen the former colony of Northern Rhodesia changed its name to Zambia on independence in 1964, the colony of Southern Rhodesia changed its name to just plain 'Rhodesia'. The change had not yet been officialy ratified when Rhodesia declared itself independent on 11 November 1965...
, (now Mutare, Zimbabwe), where they lived for the rest of his life. Mercer supervised the building of a replacement house for Cockade, another hillside venture, and, in 1948, they moved into “Sacradown”, on Oak Avenue. The furniture in France was shipped to Rhodesia, as were the Waterloo Bridge balusters (see
The House that Berry Built), which had never reached Cockade, but had been stored in England during the Second World War.
Cecil William Mercer died in March 1960.
His writings
Mercer originally wrote short stories for the monthly magazines; many of his works began as stories in the
Windsor Magazine, before being collected in book form. His first known published work,
Temporary Insanity, appeared in
PunchPunch was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire published from 1841 to 1992 and from 1996 to 2002. Punch material was also collected in book formats as early as the 1800s, including Pick of the Punch annuals with cartoons and text features, Punch and the War a 1941 collection of...
in May 1910 - this is the first known occasion of his use of his pen name - and his second,
Like A Tale That is Told appeared in the
Red Magazine in July 1910. The first known
Berry story to be published,
Babes in the Wood, appeared in
Pearsons Magazine in September 1910. None of these early stories was ever included in his books.
His first story for the
Windsor Magazine was
Busy Bees, in 1911, and this, and subsequent stories, from that publication were republished in book form as
The Brother of Daphne, in 1914. Some of the stories were edited for the book, to eliminate events, such as marriage, for the leading characters — which suggests that, originally, he had not planned on using the same characters for a story series. The narrator — later identified as “Boy Pleydell” — marries in both
Babes in the Wood and in
Busy Bees, which became
The Busy Beers, a chapter in
The Brother of Daphne, with the end of the story altered to leave him unmarried.
For the stories composing his second book,
The Courts of Idleness, Yates initially introduced a new set of characters similar to, but separate from,
Berry & Co, but then killed off the male characters in Salonika, during the Great War; the second half of the book returns to the
Berry characters. The book’s final story,
Nemesis, was written for, and rejected by,
Punch; subsequently, it appeared in the
Windsor Magazine in November 1919, with the main character named “Jeremy”; for the book he became “Berry”.
Nemesis was written to the
Punch length, and so is much shorter than most of the other stories in
The Courts of Idleness.
The
Berry books are semi-autobiographical, humorous romances, often in short story form, and, in particular, feature Bertram “Berry” Pleydell (“of White Ladies, in the County of Hampshire”) and his family — his wife and cousin, Daphne, her brother, Boy Pleydell (the narrator), and their cousins Jonathan “Jonah” Mansel, and his sister, Jill. Collectively, they are “Berry & Co.” Although all five appear in
Babes in the Wood, their precise relationships are unstated, and Berry and Daphne are referred to as second cousins as late as
Jonah & Co; later stories feature a simple family tree, showing them to be first cousins descended from two brothers and a sister.
“Berry & Co.” capture the English upper classes of the Edwardian time, still self-assured, but affected by changing social attitudes and the decline of their fortunes. As in many of Yates’ books, grand houses, powerful motor cars, and foreign travel feature prominently in the Berry stories. In the 1950s, C.W. Mercer wrote two books of fictionalized memoirs,
As Berry and I were Saying and
B-Berry and I Look Back, written as conversations between Berry and his family. They contain many anecdotes about his experiences as a lawyer, but are, in the main, an elegy for a passed upper-class way of life.
The
Chandos books, starting with
Blind Corner, in 1927, marked a sea change in style and content, being thrillers set mainly in
Continental EuropeContinental Europe, also referred to as mainland Europe or simply the Continent, is the continent of Europe, explicitly excluding European islands and, at times, peninsulas. Notably, in British and Irish English usage, the term means Europe excluding the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, the Channel...
(often in
CarinthiaCarinthia is the southernmost Austrian state or Land. Situated within the Eastern Alps it is chiefly noted for its mountains and lakes....
,
AustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.3 million people in Central Europe. It borders both Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west...
), wherein the hero–narrator, Richard Chandos, and colleagues, including George Hanbury and Jonathan Mansel (who also featured in the Berry books), tackle criminals, protect the innocent, romance beautiful ladies, and hunt for treasure. It is the Chandos novels to which
Alan BennettAlan Bennett is an English author, actor, humorist and playwright.-Early years:Bennett was born in Armley in Leeds, West Yorkshire. The son of a co-op butcher, Bennett attended Leeds Modern School , learned Russian at the Joint Services School for Linguists during his National Service, and gained...
especially refers in naming Dornford Yates in the play
Forty Years OnForty Years On is a 1968 play by Alan Bennett. It was his first West End play.-Subject:The play is set in a British public school called Albion House, which is putting on an end of term play in front of the parents, i.e. the audience...
(1972): “Sapper, Buchan, Dornford Yates, practitioners in that school of Snobbery with Violence that runs like a thread of good-class tweed through twentieth-century literature.” Yates also wrote other thrillers in the same style, but with different characters.
Besides the two genres in which he specialised, some of Yates' novels do not easily fall into either the humorous or the thriller category.
Anthony Lyveden was Dornford Yates’s first novel, telling the story of an impoverished ex-officer; it ends in a cliff-hanger. Originally, it was published in monthly instalments in the
Windsor Magazine,
Valerie French, the sequel to
Anthony Lyveden features mostly the same cast. At the start of the book Lyveden is suffering
amnesiaRetrograde amnesia is a form of amnesia where someone will be unable to recall events that occurred before the development of amnesia. The term is used to categorise patterns of symptoms, rather than to indicate a particular cause or etiology....
, and cannot recall the events of the previous book, leading to romantic complications.
The Stolen March is a fantasy set in a lost realm, between Spain and France, where travellers encounter characters from nursery rhymes and fairy tales. A planned sequel,
The Tempered Wind, is referred to in the quasi-autobiography,
B-Berry and I Look Back, where Yates mentions abandoning the book as it failed to “take charge”.
This Publican features a scheming woman and her hen-pecked husband. Some critics have suggested that the portrayal of the villainess represented a thinly-veiled attack on Mercer's first wife; however it is difficult to believe that the weak-willed husband is intended as a self-portrait.
Lower than Vermin (the title derives from Socialist politician
Aneurin BevanAneurin Bevan , usually known as Nye Bevan, was a Welsh Labour politician. He was a key figure on the left of the party in the mid-20th century and was the Minister of Health responsible for the formation of the National Health Service.-Youth:Bevan was born in Tredegar, Monmouthshire, in the South...
’s description of members of the Conservative party) is a novel in which Mercer defends his views on social class, and criticises the path Britain was following under the post-war Labour government.
Ne'er-Do-Well is a murder story narrated by Richard Chandos, with whom the investigating policeman is staying; it features a visiting Jonathan Mansel.
Wife Apparent attempts to portray “Dornford Yates’s” type of people in a 1950s setting; given that they remain essentially Edwardian in outlook, this novel is only partly successful.
Stage, cinema, and other media
The 1919 musical play
Eastward Ho! was written by
Oscar AscheJohn Stange Heiss Oscar Asche , better known as Oscar Asche, was an Australian actor, director and writer, best known for having written, directed, and acted in the record-breaking musical Chu Chin Chow, both on stage and film, and for acting in, directing, or producing many Shakespeare plays and...
(author) with lyrics by Dornford Yates and music by Grace Torrens and John Ansell. It was produced by
Edward LaurillardEdward Laurillard was a cinema and theatre producer in London and New York during the first third of the 20th century...
and George Grossmith Jr, and opened at the
Alhambra TheatreThe Alhambra was a popular theatre and music hall located on the east side of Leicester Square, in the West End of London. It was established in 1854 and demolished in 1936. Its name was adopted by many other British music hall theatres located elsewhere in the metropolis, in Bradford, in Hull and...
in London on 9 September and ran for 124 performances.
Although none of Yates’s books has yet been filmed for the cinema, the BBC produced an adaptation of
She Fell Among Thieves in 1977, featuring
Malcolm McDowellMalcolm McDowell is an English actor. McDowell's career has spanned more than forty years and includes notable roles in if...., A Clockwork Orange, O Lucky Man!, Tank Girl, Star Trek Generations, the TV serial Our Friends in the North, Entourage, Heroes, Metalocalypse, the 2007 remake of Halloween...
as Chandos,
Michael JaystonMichael Jayston is an English actor.-Early life:He attended the Becket Grammar School in West Bridgford. He worked briefly as a trainee accountant at the offices of the National Coal Board before obtaining a scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama to train as an actor...
as Mansel, and
Eileen AtkinsDame Eileen June Atkins, DBE is an English actress and occasional screenwriter.- Early life :Atkins was born in a Salvation Army women's hostel in East London , the cockney daughter of Annie Ellen , a barmaid who was 46 when Eileen was born, and Arthur Thomas Atkins, a gas-meter reader who was...
as Vanity Fair.
An episode of the ITV
Hannay series, “A Point of Honour”, was based on the eponymous short story published in
The Brother of Daphne, but the source was uncredited.
An audiobook edition of
Blind Corner, read by
Alan RickmanAlan Sidney Patrick Rickman is an English actor. Rickman is best known for his performances in film as Hans Gruber in Die Hard and Severus Snape in the Harry Potter film series, as well as extensive stage work...
, was produced by Chivers Audio Books, but is currently out of print.
External links