Finishing up the B's this
time around, with some mystery or suspense writers (for a forthcoming American
mystery list?), a couple of scandalous women, some socially conscious authors,
and a few odds and ends.
DOROTHY BENNETT
seems to have had a quite popular name, as we identified no fewer than three other Dorothy Bennetts writing
around the same time: a Dorothy Agnes Bennett, born Minneapolis, curator at the
Hayden Planetarium and editor of Simon & Schuster's "Little Golden
Books" for young children, a Dorothy Bennett née Barnes, a British crime
novelist (who will be added to my British Women Writers list when I get around
to a new update), and yet another Dorothy Bennett, born Indiana, who wrote
several plays and then became a Hollywood screenwriter. But the woman in
question here is one Dorothy Evelyn Bennett, who wrote one mystery novel in
traditional form, Murder Unleashed
(1935), set in San Francisco and now available in e-book, and a second that's
definitely not in traditional form—How
Strange a Thing (1935), in which the story is told entirely in verse. The Passing
Tramp discussed the latter here.
EVELYN BERCKMAN
was the author of more than two dozen novels, including straightforward
mysteries, romantic suspense, historical fiction, and supernatural tales. Her
earliest titles, including The Evil of
Time (1954), The Beckoning Dream
(1955, aka Worse Than Murder), The Strange Bedfellow (1956, aka Jewel of Death), and The Hovering Darkness (1958), were
psychological thrillers. She was also a musician and composer. She spent her
later years living in London.
Although contemporary reviews
seem to have been lackluster, the three mysteries by MARJORIE BONIFACE have an intriguingly unusual setting and cast of
characters. Murder as an Ornament
(1940), Venom in Eden (1942), and Wings of Death (1946) all seem to
feature Mabel Wickley, a Brooklyn widow transplanted to southern Texas, who
keeps getting involved with murder and helping local Sheriff Odom solve the
cases. One review says specifically that Venom
in Eden takes place on the Mexican border, and I can't help but wonder how
that border was portrayed during World War II as opposed to today. For whatever
reason, Wings of Death (1946) appears
to be available for downloading from archive.org.
Back cover of Dell paperback featuring map of the "scene of mystery" |
KATHARINE NEWLIN BURT was not particularly well-known as a mystery writer,
but at least one of her books, Lady in
the Tower (1946) appears to be mystery or suspense, based on a paperback
reprint.
Burt was the author of more than two dozen novels in all, many
apparently with Western settings and themes. Other titles include Penelope Intrudes (1912), Quest (1925), A Man's Own Country (1931), When
Beggars Choose (1937), Fatal Gift
(1941), Close Pursuit (1947), and Escape from Paradise (1952). After her
final adult novel, Burt published three children's books.
ANITA BOUTELL
was the author of four well-received crime novels. According to The Passing
Tramp, the first, Death Brings a Storke
(1938), is a traditional whodunnit set in an English village, while the three
later novels—Tell Death to Wait
(1938), Death Has a Past (1939), and Cradled in Fear (1943), are more
psychological suspense. Boutell had relocated to England with her third
husband, and apparently wrote most of her books there, before returning to the
U.S. just before World War II. The Passing Tramp discussed her books, her
sometimes dramatic life, and her extraordinarily bad luck with husbands here.
But the biggest name among
the mystery writer B's, at least in her own time, is clearly ZENITH JONES BROWN, who published more
than 60 mystery novels, most under her Leslie Ford and David Frome pseudonyms. Like
Boutell, she began writing while living with her husband in England, and for
the most part her Frome titles are set in the U.K., while her Ford titles are
mainly set in the U.S., particularly in the Washington DC area or in Maryland
where Brown lived for many years. Many of the Frome titles, beginning with The Hammersmith Murders (1930), feature
series characters Mr Pinkerton and his friend, Inspector Bull of Scotland Yard.
Other titles in the series include Two
Against Scotland Yard (1931), The Eel
Pie Murders (1933, aka Eel Pie
Mystery), Mr Pinkerton Grows a Beard
(1935, aka The Body in Bedford Square),
Mr Pinkerton at the Old Angel (1939),
and Homicide House (1950).
Judging from this cover, it appears this one is about the murder of an alien with a block of kryptonite? |
Many of Brown's Ford titles feature series characters Colonel Primrose and Sergeant Buck,
as well as widow Grace Latham. That series includes The Strangled Witness (1934), Ill
Met By Moonlight (1937), Old Lover's
Ghost (1940), The Murder of a Fifth
Columnist (1941, aka A Capital Crime),
All for the Love of a Lady (1944, aka
Crack of Dawn), The Philadelphia Murder Story (1945), The Woman In Black (1947), and Washington
Whispers Murder (1953, aka The Lying
Jade). Under a third pseudonym, Brenda Conrad, Brown published a handful of
romantic novels during WWII. Some of Brown's mysteries have been reprinted
and/or released as e-books in recent years, though the Frome e-books available
in the U.S. have an "editor" and contain notes to the effect that
they have been "adapted to the American reader"—a rather odd thing
when the author herself was American. Some concerns have been expressed in
recent years about Brown's portrayals of African-American characters; perhaps
these edits are an attempt to adapt or censor such content? I have to give special
thanks to Linda Lyons for sharing her wealth of knowledge and research about Brown.
Of the two scandalous women
included in this post, one of them gains an entry on my Grownup School Story
list (or will when I get round to updating it). CARMAN BARNES was most famous for her debut novel, the scandalous
international bestseller Schoolgirl
(1929), which was set in a girls' boarding school and included themes of
lesbianism and sexual experimentation. Barnes, who was only sixteen and in
boarding school herself when the book appeared, was summarily expelled. She
revisited that book's main character in her later novel Young Woman (1934). Her others are Beau Lover (1930), Mother, Be
Careful! (1932), and Time Lay Asleep
(1946). There's an interesting article
about her life and work here.
Natalie Barney |
More famous than Barnes
(though not necessarily for her writing) was NATALIE CLIFFORD BARNEY. Although born in Ohio, Barney spent her
adult life in Paris. Apart from one novel, The
One Who Is Legion (1930), most of her work was published in French, and
much of it has only been translated late in the 20th century, most notably in A Perilous Advantage: The Best of Natalie
Clifford Barney (1992). In her own lifetime, she was far more influential
as a hostess, maintaining a famous salon in her Paris home for more than half a
century. Guests over the years included the likes of André Gide, Jean Cocteau,
T.S. Eliot, Thornton Wilder, Sherwood Anderson, Sinclair Lewis, Ernest
Hemingway, Edith Sitwell, Rainer Maria Rilke, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Isadora
Duncan, Peggy Guggenheim, Ezra Pound, James Joyce and Truman Capote. Her final
salon was reportedly held in the midst of the student riots of May 1968. She
was the companion of painter Romaine Brooks for nearly half a century, although
she also had other lovers (including Dolly Wilde, Oscar's flamboyant and
tormented niece). Barney and her well-known lesbian circle were portrayed
humorously but affectionately in Ladies
Almanack, a short, anonymously published satire by Djuna Barnes, whom I
mentioned in an earlier B's post.
Several of my B's were
concerned in various ways with social and political issues, and used their
fiction as a platform from which to discuss them. MARGARET CULKIN BANNING's 30+ novels were "problem" stories
exploring themes like women's rights, religious conflict, parenting, birth
control, and domestic economy (her 1955 novel The Dowry deals with a wife making more money than her husband).
Despite usually featuring a central social issue, critics noted that her novels
were highly readable—of her debut, This
Marrying, a reviewer said: "The success of the story lies not in an
original plot, nor even in an unusual manner of telling the story, but rather
in a certain freshness and joy in the experience of it all." Other titles
include Country Club People (1923), Money of Her Own (1928), The Iron Will (1935), The Clever Sister (1947), Echo Answers (1960), and Such Interesting People (1979). She also
published a wartime memoir, Letters from
England, Summer 1942 (1942).
BETSEY A. BARTON channeled her own personal obstacles into her fiction. Badly disabled
in an auto accident at age 16, she first published a memoir of her long and
painful rehabilitation, And Now to Live
Again (1944), in part to inspire those injured in WWII. She then wrote a
novel, The Long Walk (1948),
detailing one day in a the life of a Veterans' Hospital for soldiers with
spinal injuries. Her second and final novel, Shadow of the Bridge (1950), is set in a girls' boarding-school and
focuses on a senior with deep resentments about her childhood. Saturday Review called it "a long,
tortured groping through a psychological labyrinth," but also noted that
Barton "succeeds to a remarkable degree in capturing the bewilderment and
anger of the girl who is a victim of her own bitterness." Barton returned
to the memoir form for her final book, As
Love Is Deep (1957), about the death of her mother from cancer.
Gwendolyn B. Bennett |
GWENDOLYN B. BENNETT was a significant figure in the Harlem Renaissance, publishing a
regular column in the African-American periodical Opportunity and beginning a support group for African-American
writers that became a veritable who's who of major authors of the period.
Sadly, however, her work was never collected in her lifetime and some of it has
likely been lost. Her poems have sometimes appeared in anthologies, and she
published at least two short stories in the 1920s, which allow her to just
squeak onto this list. She was also an artist and illustrator.
And CATHARINE BRODY was a journalist and author of four novels—Babe Evanson (1928), West of Fifth (1930), Nobody Starves (1932), and Cash Item (1933). In the early 1930s,
she wrote a series of articles based on her experiences working at various jobs
in 20 different American cities, and Nobody
Starves, a tragic story of Depression-era Detroit, grew out of her
experiences at a Detroit automobile factory. According to her passport
application, Brody was apparently born (as Borodovko) in Russia, though her
family relocated to New York soon after. She was a friend of Rose Wilder Lane
(daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder), and was definitely still alive in 1960 when
her mother's death notice appeared in the New York Times, but we have so far
been unable to find a record of her death except for an Ancestry tree which gives
1962 with no supporting record.
And finally, two random
Browns to finish out the B's, one of them rather prolific, the other distinctly
not. ALICE BROWN was a playwright,
poet, and author of more than 40 volumes of fiction, much of it set in rural or
small town New England. She was particularly acclaimed for her short stories,
of which she published nine collections beginning with Meadow-grass: Tales of New England Life (1895). Other titles
include Stratford-by-the-Sea (1884), Mercy Warren (1896), The Story of Thyrza (1909), John Winterbourne's Family (1910), The Prisoner (1916), Old Crow (1922), The Mysteries of Ann (1925), The
Diary of a Dryad (1932), and The
Willoughbys (1935).
KAREN BROWN,
by contrast, is the untraced author of only two novels—Shanghai Lady (1929), a novelization of a film of the same name,
and The Girl from Woolworth's (1930),
which apparently became one of the first movie musicals.
Among this batch of authors,
Zenith Jones Brown and Carman Barnes seem to intrigue me the most. Are any
striking your fancy?
"Now," Scott writes, "the search is on to find good cover art tos how you..."
ReplyDeleteYou certainly will have to search hard to surpass this batch - LOVE the cover art!
Don't know a single one of these ladies, but am so intrigued.
Tom
I reviewed THE MAN FROM SCOTLAND YARD, by "David Frome", from 1932, at my blog a few years ago. I quite enjoyed it.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, I thought this was the most exciting B post yet! I just wish there were more hours in the day, because my TBR list is simply insane.
ReplyDeleteI have two books using the Leslie Ford name, but have never gotten around to reading them. Date with Death, 1949, if I am reading my Roman numerals correctly, and Murder in the OPM published in 1942. Not sure why I have never read them. No DJs? I should give them a try. The opening of Murder in the OPM is promising.
ReplyDeleteJerri
Ah yes, those covers. Zowie!
ReplyDeleteEspecially....The Strange Bedfellow. I dunno. What's so strange about a gigantic head floating in the, uh, stairwell? Oversized casket? Open courtyard?
Thanks again, Scott, for all your research.
As a mature student reading English and Creative Writing at University I was overwhelmed with the diversity of women’s writing in the nineteen hundreds. So much so I have decided to write my dissertation on obscure women writers between 1930-50s.
ReplyDeleteI shall enjoy using this location, and sourcing the books for my library.