Edmund Crispin

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, known for his Gervase Fen novels.

Life and work

Montgomery was born in Chesham Bois, Buckinghamshire.[1] 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[2] and choirmaster. 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, (Sergeant, Nurse, Teacher, Constable, Regardless and Cruising), including the original Carry On theme subsequently adapted for later films by Eric Rogers. He also composed the scores to four films in the Doctor film series (House, Sea, Large and Love). Montgomery wrote both the screenplay and score of Raising the Wind (1961), and his other film scores included The Kidnappers (1953), Raising a Riot (1955), Eyewitness (1956), The Truth About Women (1957), The Surgeon's Knife (1957), Please Turn Over (1959), Too Young to Love (1959), Watch Your Stern (1960), No Kidding (1960), Twice Round the Daffodils (1962) and The Brides of Fu Manchu (1966).

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!).[3] The stories feature Oxford don Gervase Fen,[4] 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."[5]

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." 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.[6]

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. He had always been a heavy drinker and there was a long gap in his writing during a time when he was suffering from alcohol problems. Otherwise he enjoyed a quiet life (enlivened by music, reading, church-going and bridge) in Totnes, Devon, where he resisted all attempts to develop or exploit the district, and visited London as little as possible. He moved to a new house he had built at Week, a hamlet near Dartington, in 1964, then married his secretary Ann in 1976, just two years before he died from alcohol-related problems. His music was composed using his real name, Bruce Montgomery.

A biography by David Whittle, Bruce Montgomery/Edmund Crispin: A Life in Music and Books ( ISBN 0754634434) was published in June 2007.

Novels

All feature Gervase Fen.

Short Story Collections

  • Beware of the Trains (1953)
  • Fen Country (1979)

Short Stories

  • Beware of the Trains. Daily Sketch, 3 December 1949. Collected in Beware of the Trains
  • Lacrimae Rerum. Daily Sketch, 21 and 22 December 1949. Collected in Beware of the Trains
  • The Quick Brown Fox. (London) Evening Standard, TBC January 1950. Collected in Beware of the Trains
  • Humbleby Agonistes. (London) Evening Standard, 17 October TBC. Collected in Beware of the Trains
  • Within the Gate. (London) Evening Standard, 3 March 1952. Collected in Beware of the Trains
  • The Drowning of Edgar Foley. (London) Evening Standard, 18 August 1952. Collected in Beware of the Trains
  • Abhorred Shears. (London) Evening Standard, 12 November TBC. Collected in Beware of the Trains
  • The Golden Mean. (London) Evening Standard, 7 August 1952. Collected in Beware of the Trains
  • The Little Room. (London) Evening Standard, TBC September 1952. Collected in Beware of the Trains
  • Express Delivery. (London) Evening Standard, TBC December TBC. Collected in Beware of the Trains
  • A Pot of Paint. Collected in Beware of the Trains
  • Black for a Funeral. Collected in Beware of the Trains
  • The Name on the Window. Collected in Beware of the Trains
  • Otherwhere. Collected in Beware of the Trains
  • The Evidence for the Crown. Collected in Beware of the Trains
  • Deadlock. Collected in Beware of the Trains
  • Who Killed Baker?. (London) Evening Standard, 27 October TBC. Collected in Fen Country
  • The Pencil. (London) Evening Standard, 24 February 1953. Collected in Fen Country
  • The House by the River. (London) Evening Standard, 25 February 1953. Collected in Fen Country
  • Death and Aunt Fancy. (London) Evening Standard, 26 February 1953. Collected in Fen Country
  • Wolf!. (London) Evening Standard, 27 February 1953. Collected in Fen Country
  • After Evensong. (London) Evening Standard, 28 February 1953. Collected in Fen Country
  • The Hunchback Cat. (London) Evening Standard, TBC August 1954. Collected in Fen Country
  • Blood Sport. (London) Evening Standard, TBC August 1954. Collected in Fen Country
  • Dog in the Night-Time. (London) Evening Standard, TBC August 1954. Collected in Fen Country
  • Man Overboard. (London) Evening Standard, TBC August 1954. Collected in Fen Country
  • The Undraped Torso. (London) Evening Standard, TBC August 1954. Collected in Fen Country
  • The Man Who Lost His Head, (London) Evening Standard, 8 August 1955. Collected in Fen Country
  • The Lion's Tooth. (London) Evening Standard, 10 August 1955. Collected in Fen Country
  • Gladstone's Candlestick. (London) Evening Standard, 12 August 1955. Collected in Fen Country
  • Outrage in Stepney. Collected in Fen Country
  • A Country to Sell. Evening Standard, 9 August 1955. Collected in Fen Country
  • A Case in Camera. Evening Standard, 11 August 1955. Collected in Fen Country
  • The Two Sisters. (London) Evening Standard, 13 August 1955. Collected in Fen Country
  • Windhover Cottage. (London) Evening Standard, TBC August 1954. Collected in Fen Country
  • We Know You're Busy Writing But We Thought You Wouldn't Mind If We Just Dropped in for a Minute. Collected in Fen Country
  • Cash on Delivery. Collected in Fen Country
  • Shot in the Dark. Collected in Fen Country
  • The Mischief Done. Collected in Fen Country
  • Merry-Go-Round. (London) Evening Standard, 23 February 1953. Collected in Fen Country
  • Occupational Risk. Collected in Fen Country

Uncollected stories

  • "St Bartholomew's Day", Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (February 1975)

Books edited by Crispin

Crispin also edited seven volumes entitled Best Science Fiction, which were published during the 1960s.[7]

Notes

  1. ↑ Whittle, David (2007). Bruce Montgomery/Edmund Crispin: A Life in Music and Books. Aldershot: Ashgate, p. 4.
  2. ↑ John Bowen in The Oldie, April 2011
  3. ↑ Herbert, Rosemary (2003). Whodunit: A Who's Who in Crime and Mystery Writing. Oxford University Press. p. 44. ISBN 0-19-515761-3.
  4. ↑ Grosset, Philip. "Gervase Fen"
  5. ↑ Crispin, Edmund (1946). The Moving Toyshop (Chapter 6). London: Four Square (paperback) Edition, 1965, p. 68.
  6. ↑ BBC - Doctor Who - Classic Series - Ebooks - Introduction - Let me entertain you
  7. ↑ Index to Science Fiction Anthologies and Collections, "Best SF" to "Best SF 7".

References

  • Whittle, David (2004). Montgomery, (Robert) Bruce/Edmund Crispin (1921–1978). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 2005-11-02.
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