Edmund Crispin
Encyclopedia
Edmund Crispin was the pseudonym
of Robert Bruce Montgomery (usually credited as Bruce Montgomery) (2 October 1921 — 15 September 1978), an English
crime writer and composer
.
, Buckinghamshire
. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School
and graduated from St John's College
, Oxford
, in 1943, with a BA
in modern languages, having for two years been its organ scholar
and choir
master. From 1943 to 1945 he taught at Shrewsbury School
. He first became established under his own name as a composer of vocal and choral music, including An Oxford Requiem (1951), but later turned to film work, writing the scores for many British comedies of the 1950s. For the Carry On series
he composed six scores, ending with Carry On Cruising
, including the original Carry On theme subsequently adapted for later films by Eric Rogers. Montgomery was responsible for both the screenplay and score of Raising the Wind
(1961).
Montgomery wrote nine detective novels and two collections of short stories under the pseudonym Edmund Crispin (taken from a character in Michael Innes's Hamlet, Revenge!). The stories feature Oxford don
Gervase Fen
, who is a Professor of English at the university and a fellow of St Christopher's College, a fictional institution that Crispin locates next to St John's College
. Fen is an eccentric, sometimes absent-minded, character reportedly based on the Oxford professor W. E. Moore. The whodunit
novels have complex plots and fantastic, somewhat unbelievable solutions, including examples of the locked room mystery
. They are written in a humorous, literary and sometimes farcical style and contain frequent references to English literature, poetry, and music. They are also among the few mystery novels to break the fourth wall
occasionally and speak directly to the audience. Perhaps the best example is from The Moving Toyshop
, during a chase sequence -- "Let's go left", Cadogan suggested. "After all, Gollancz
is publishing this book."
Gareth Roberts
has stated that the tone of his Doctor Who novel The Well-Mannered War
was modelled upon Crispin's style. He also remarks (of The Moving Toyshop) that "It's more like Doctor Who than Doctor Who." Novelist Christopher Fowler
pays homage to The Moving Toyshop in The Victoria Vanishes, his sixth Bryant & May novel. Crispin is considered by many to be one of the last great exponents of the 'classic' crime mystery.
Montgomery's output of music and fiction all but ceased after the 1950s, but he continued to write reviews of crime novels and science fiction works for The Sunday Times
. Alcoholism
was a factor in his early death from a heart attack.
A biography by David Whittle, Bruce Montgomery/Edmund Crispin: A Life in Music and Books (ISBN 0754634434) was published in June 2007.
Crispin also edited seven volumes entitled Best Science Fiction, which were published during the 1960s.
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
of Robert Bruce Montgomery (usually credited as Bruce Montgomery) (2 October 1921 — 15 September 1978), an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
crime writer and composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
.
Life and work
Montgomery was born in Chesham BoisChesham Bois
Chesham Bois is a village in Buckinghamshire, England, adjacent to both Amersham and Chesham.-History:...
, Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....
. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School
Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood
Merchant Taylors' School is a British independent day school for boys, originally located in the City of London. Since 1933 it has been located at Sandy Lodge in the Three Rivers district of Hertfordshire ....
and graduated from St John's College
St John's College, Oxford
__FORCETOC__St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford, one of the larger Oxford colleges with approximately 390 undergraduates, 200 postgraduates and over 100 academic staff. It was founded by Sir Thomas White, a merchant, in 1555, whose heart is buried in the chapel of...
, Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
, in 1943, with a BA
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
in modern languages, having for two years been its organ scholar
Organ (music)
The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...
and choir
Choir
A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
master. From 1943 to 1945 he taught at Shrewsbury School
Shrewsbury School
Shrewsbury School is a co-educational independent school for pupils aged 13 to 18, founded by Royal Charter in 1552. The present campus to which the school moved in 1882 is located on the banks of the River Severn in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England...
. He first became established under his own name as a composer of vocal and choral music, including An Oxford Requiem (1951), but later turned to film work, writing the scores for many British comedies of the 1950s. For the Carry On series
Carry On films
The Carry On films are a series of low-budget British comedy films, directed by Gerald Thomas and produced by Peter Rogers. They are an energetic mix of parody, farce, slapstick and double entendres....
he composed six scores, ending with Carry On Cruising
Carry On Cruising
Carry On Cruising is the sixth Carry On film and was released in 1962. It was the first in the Carry On series to be filmed in colour and was based on an original story by Eric Barker. P&O - Orient Lines were thanked in the credits. Regulars Sid James, Kenneth Williams and Kenneth Connor appear in...
, including the original Carry On theme subsequently adapted for later films by Eric Rogers. Montgomery was responsible for both the screenplay and score of Raising the Wind
Raising the Wind (1961 film)
Raising the Wind is a 1961 British comedy film written by Bruce Montgomery and directed by Gerald Thomas. It starred James Robertson Justice, Leslie Phillips, Kenneth Williams, Liz Fraser, Eric Barker and Sid James...
(1961).
Montgomery wrote nine detective novels and two collections of short stories under the pseudonym Edmund Crispin (taken from a character in Michael Innes's Hamlet, Revenge!). The stories feature Oxford don
University don
A don is a fellow or tutor of a college or university, especially traditional collegiate universities such as Oxford and Cambridge in England.The term — similar to the title still used for Catholic priests — is a historical remnant of Oxford and Cambridge having started as ecclesiastical...
Gervase Fen
Gervase Fen
Gervase Fen is a fictional amateur detective and Oxford Professor of English Language and Literature created by Edmund Crispin. Fen appears in nine novels and two books of short stories published between 1944 and 1979...
, who is a Professor of English at the university and a fellow of St Christopher's College, a fictional institution that Crispin locates next to St John's College
St John's College, Oxford
__FORCETOC__St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford, one of the larger Oxford colleges with approximately 390 undergraduates, 200 postgraduates and over 100 academic staff. It was founded by Sir Thomas White, a merchant, in 1555, whose heart is buried in the chapel of...
. Fen is an eccentric, sometimes absent-minded, character reportedly based on the Oxford professor W. E. Moore. The whodunit
Whodunit
A whodunit or whodunnit is a complex, plot-driven variety of the detective story in which the puzzle is the main feature of interest. The reader or viewer is provided with clues from which the identity of the perpetrator of the crime may be deduced before the solution is revealed in the final...
novels have complex plots and fantastic, somewhat unbelievable solutions, including examples of the locked room mystery
Locked room mystery
The locked room mystery is a sub-genre of detective fiction in which a crime—almost always murder—is committed under apparently impossible circumstances. The crime in question typically involves a crime scene that no intruder could have entered or left, e.g., a locked room...
. They are written in a humorous, literary and sometimes farcical style and contain frequent references to English literature, poetry, and music. They are also among the few mystery novels to break the fourth wall
Fourth wall
The fourth wall is the imaginary "wall" at the front of the stage in a traditional three-walled box set in a proscenium theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play...
occasionally and speak directly to the audience. Perhaps the best example is from The Moving Toyshop
The Moving Toyshop
The Moving Toyshop is a comic crime novel by Edmund Crispin, published in 1946. The novel features the detective and Oxford don, Gervase Fen.It is dedicated to the poet Philip Larkin, Crispin's contemporary at St. John's College, Oxford...
, during a chase sequence -- "Let's go left", Cadogan suggested. "After all, Gollancz
Victor Gollancz Ltd
Victor Gollancz Ltd was a major British book publishing house of the twentieth century. It was founded in 1927 by Victor Gollancz and specialised in the publication of high quality literature, nonfiction and popular fiction, including science fiction. Upon Gollancz's death in 1967, ownership...
is publishing this book."
Gareth Roberts
Gareth Roberts (writer)
Gareth John Pritchard Roberts is a British television screenwriter and novelist, best known for his work related to the science-fiction television series Doctor Who...
has stated that the tone of his Doctor Who novel The Well-Mannered War
The Well-Mannered War
The Well-Mannered War is a Virgin Missing Adventures original novel written by Gareth Roberts based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It features the Fourth Doctor, Romana and K-9...
was modelled upon Crispin's style. He also remarks (of The Moving Toyshop) that "It's more like Doctor Who than Doctor Who." Novelist Christopher Fowler
Christopher Fowler
Christopher Fowler is an English thriller writer. In addition to his numerous horror, satire and crime novels, he has also written a Sherlock Holmes audio drama for BBC 7 entitled The Lady Downstairs...
pays homage to The Moving Toyshop in The Victoria Vanishes, his sixth Bryant & May novel. Crispin is considered by many to be one of the last great exponents of the 'classic' crime mystery.
Montgomery's output of music and fiction all but ceased after the 1950s, but he continued to write reviews of crime novels and science fiction works for The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times (UK)
The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper, distributed in the United Kingdom. The Sunday Times is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International, which is in turn owned by News Corporation. Times Newspapers also owns The Times, but the two papers were founded...
. Alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
was a factor in his early death from a heart attack.
A biography by David Whittle, Bruce Montgomery/Edmund Crispin: A Life in Music and Books (ISBN 0754634434) was published in June 2007.
Books
- The Case of the Gilded FlyThe Case of the Gilded FlyThe Case of the Gilded Fly is a detective novel by Edmund Crispin first published in 1944. Crispin's debut novel, it contains the first appearance of eccentric amateur sleuth Gervase Fen, who is Professor of English Language and Literature in the University of Oxford...
(1944) - Holy Disorders (1945)
- The Moving ToyshopThe Moving ToyshopThe Moving Toyshop is a comic crime novel by Edmund Crispin, published in 1946. The novel features the detective and Oxford don, Gervase Fen.It is dedicated to the poet Philip Larkin, Crispin's contemporary at St. John's College, Oxford...
(1946) was dedicated to Crispin's great friend and fellow admirer of the work of John Dickson CarrJohn Dickson CarrJohn Dickson Carr was an American author of detective stories, who also published under the pen names Carter Dickson, Carr Dickson and Roger Fairbairn....
, Philip LarkinPhilip LarkinPhilip Arthur Larkin, CH, CBE, FRSL is widely regarded as one of the great English poets of the latter half of the twentieth century...
. - Swan Song (1947)
- Love Lies BleedingLove Lies Bleeding (novel)Love Lies Bleeding is a detective novel by Edmund Crispin first published in 1948. Set in the post-war period in and around a public school in the vicinity of Stratford-upon-Avon, it is about the accidental discovery of old manuscripts which contain Shakespeare's long-lost play, Love's Labour's...
(1948) - Buried for Pleasure (1948)
- Frequent Hearses (1950)
- The Long Divorce (1952)
- Beware of the Trains (1953) (short story collection)
- The Glimpses of the Moon (1977)
- Fen Country (1979) (short story collection, published posthumously)
Crispin also edited seven volumes entitled Best Science Fiction, which were published during the 1960s.
External links
- Bibliography of 1st Editions
- Edmund Crispin at the West Midlands Literary Heritage website
- Wyatt James on Crispin