|
Murder On The Links
''The Murder on the Links'' is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie, first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company, Dodd, Mead & Co in March 1923, and in the UK by The Bodley Head in May of the same year. It is the second novel featuring Hercule Poirot and Arthur Hastings. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and British sixpence coin, sixpence (7/6), and the US edition at $1.75. The story takes place in northern France, giving Poirot a hostile competitor from the Paris Sûreté. Poirot's long memory for past or similar crimes proves useful in resolving the crimes. The book is notable for a subplot in which Hastings falls in love, a development "greatly desired on Agatha's part... parcelling off Hastings to wedded bliss in the Argentine." Reviews when it was published compared Mrs Christie favourably to Arthur Conan Doyle in his Sherlock Holmes mysteries. Remarking on Poirot, still a new character, one reviewer said he was "a pleasant contrast to most of h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, (; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English people, English author known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, the murder mystery ''The Mousetrap'', which has been performed in the West End theatre, West End of London since 1952. A writer during the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction", Christie has been called the "Queen of Crime"—a nickname now trademarked by her estate—or the "Queen of Mystery". She also wrote six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. In 1971, she was made a Dame (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for her contributions to literature. She is the best-selling fiction writer of all time, her novels having sold more than two billion copies. Christie was born into a wealthy upper-middle-class family in Torquay, Devon, and was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes () is a Detective fiction, fictional detective created by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a "Private investigator, consulting detective" in his stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with observation, deduction, forensic science and logical reasoning that borders on the fantastic, which he employs when investigating cases for a wide variety of clients, including Scotland Yard. The character Sherlock Holmes first appeared in print in 1887's ''A Study in Scarlet''. His popularity became widespread with the first series of short stories in ''The Strand Magazine'', beginning with "A Scandal in Bohemia" in 1891; additional tales appeared from then until 1927, eventually totalling Canon of Sherlock Holmes, four novels and 56 short stories. All but one are set in the Victorian era, Victorian or Edwardian era, Edwardian eras between 1880 and 1914. Most are narrated by the character of Holmes's friend and biographer, Dr. Watson, Dr. John ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Penny (British Pre-decimal Coin)
The United Kingdom, British £sd, pre-decimal penny was a denomination of Coins of the United Kingdom, sterling coinage worth of one Pound sterling, pound or of one Shilling (British coin), shilling. Its symbol was ''d'', from the Roman denarius. It was a continuation of the earlier Penny (English coin), English penny, and in Scotland it had the same monetary value as one Acts of Union 1707, pre-1707 Scottish shilling, thus the English penny was called in Scottish Gaelic. The penny was originally minted in silver, but from the late 18th century it was minted in copper, and then after 1860 in bronze. The plural of "penny" is "pence" (often added as an unstressed suffix) when referring to an amount of money, and "pennies" when referring to a number of coins. Thus 8''d'' is eightpence or eight pence, but "eight pennies" means specifically eight individual penny coins. Before Decimal Day in 1971, sterling used the Carolingian monetary system (£sd), under which the largest unit w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shilling
The shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currency, currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, other British Commonwealth countries and Ireland, where they were generally equivalent to 12 pence or one-twentieth of a Pound (currency), pound before being phased out during the 1960s and 1970s. Currently the shilling is used as a currency in five east African countries: Kenyan shilling, Kenya, Tanzanian shilling, Tanzania, Ugandan shilling, Uganda, Somali shilling, Somalia, and the ''de facto'' country of Somaliland shilling, Somaliland. The East African Community additionally plans to introduce an East African shilling. History The word ''shilling'' comes from Anglo-Saxon language, Anglo-Saxon phrase "Scilling", a monetary term meaning literally "twentieth of a pound", from the Proto-Germanic root :wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/skiljaną, skiljaną meaning literally "to separate, split, divide", from :wikt:Reconstr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Murder On The Links First Edition Cover 1923
Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse committed with the necessary intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisdiction. ("The killing of another person without justification or excuse, especially the crime of killing a person with malice aforethought or with recklessness manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life.") This state of mind may, depending upon the jurisdiction, distinguish murder from other forms of unlawful homicide, such as manslaughter. Manslaughter is killing committed in the absence of ''malice'',This is "malice" in a technical legal sense, not the more usual English sense denoting an emotional state. See malice (law). such as in the case of voluntary manslaughter brought about by reasonable provocation, or diminished capacity. ''Involuntary'' manslaughter, where it is recognized, is a killing that lacks all but the most attenuated guilty intent, recklessness. Most societies conside ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brides In The Bath Murders
George Joseph Smith (11 January 1872 – 13 August 1915) was an English serial killer and bigamist who was convicted and subsequently hanged for the murders of three women in 1915. The case became known as the Brides in the Bath Murders. As well as being widely reported in the media, it was significant in the history of forensic pathology and detection. It was also one of the first cases in which striking similarities between connected crimes were used to prove guilt, a technique used in subsequent prosecutions. Early life and marriages George Joseph Smith was born in Bethnal Green, London, on 11 January 1872, the son of an insurance agent. At age 9, Smith was sent to a reformatory at Gravesend, Kent, and later was imprisoned for fraud and theft. In 1896 he was sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment for persuading a woman to steal from her employers. Smith used the proceeds to open a baker's shop in Leicester. In 1898, under the alias George Oliver Love, Smith married Caroline B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean Racine
Jean-Baptiste Racine ( , ; ; 22 December 1639 – 21 April 1699) was a French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of 17th-century France, along with Molière and Corneille, as well as an important literary figure in the Western tradition and world literature. Racine was primarily a tragedian, producing such "examples of neoclassical perfection" as '' Phèdre'', '' Andromaque'', and '' Athalie''. He did write one comedy, '' Les Plaideurs'', and a muted tragedy, '' Esther'', for the young. Racine's plays displayed his mastery of the dodecasyllabic (12 syllable) French alexandrine. His writing is renowned for its elegance, purity, speed, and fury, and for what American poet Robert Lowell described as a "diamond-edge", and the "glory of its hard, electric rage". Racine's dramaturgy is marked by his psychological insight, the prevailing passion of his characters, and the nakedness of both plot and stage. Biography Racine was born on 21 December 1639 in La Ferté- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gaston Leroux
Gaston Louis Alfred Leroux (; 6 May 186815 April 1927) was a French journalist and author of detective fiction. In the English-speaking world, he is best known for writing the novel ''The Phantom of the Opera'' (, 1909), which has been made into several film and stage productions of the same name, notably the 1925 film starring Lon Chaney and Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical. His 1907 novel '' The Mystery of the Yellow Room'' is one of the most celebrated locked room mysteries. Life and career Leroux was born in Paris in 1868, the illegitimate child of Marie Bidaut and Dominique Leroux, who married a month after his birth. He claimed an illustrious pedigree, including descent from William II of England (in French, Guillaume le Roux), son of William the Conqueror, and social connections such as having been the official playmate of Prince Philippe, Count of Paris at the College d'Eu in Normandy. After schooling in Normandy and studying as a lawyer in Caen (graduating in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Barnard
Robert Barnard (23 November 1936 – 19 September 2013) was an English crime writer, critic and lecturer. In addition to over 40 books published under his own name, he also published four books under the pseudonym Bernard Bastable. Life and work Robert Barnard was born on 23 November 1936 at Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex. He was educated at the Colchester Royal Grammar School and at Balliol College, Oxford. He spent five years (1961-1965) as an academic in the English Department at the University of New England, at Armidale, New South Wales, in Australia. His first crime novel, ''Death of an Old Goat'', was published in 1974. The novel was written while he was a lecturer at the University of Tromsø in Norway. He went on to write more than 40 other books and numerous short stories. As "Bernard Bastable", he published two standalone novels and two alternate history books, featuring Wolfgang Mozart – who had here survived to old age – as a detective. Barnard was inducted into ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Hound Of The Baskervilles
''The Hound of the Baskervilles'' is the third of the four Detective fiction, crime novels by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes. Originally serial (literature), serialised in ''The Strand Magazine'' from August 1901 to April 1902, it is set largely in Dartmoor, Devon, in England's West Country and follows Holmes and Dr. Watson, Watson investigating the legend of a fearsome, Black dog (folklore), diabolical hound of supernatural origin. This was the first appearance of Holmes since his apparent death in "The Final Problem", and the success of ''The Hound of the Baskervilles'' led to the character's eventual revival. One of the most famous stories ever written, in 2003, the book was listed as number 128 of 200 on the BBC's The Big Read poll of the UK's "best-loved novel". In 1999, a poll of "Sherlockians" ranked it as the best of the four Holmes novels. Plot In London, 1889, Dr. James Mortimer asks for the aid of Sherlock Holmes, beginni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Adventure Of The Speckled Band
"The Adventure of the Speckled Band" is one of 56 short Sherlock Holmes stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the eighth story of twelve in the collection ''The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes''. It was originally published in ''Strand Magazine'' in February 1892. "The Speckled Band" is a classic locked-room mystery that deals with the themes of parental greed, inheritance and freedom. Tinged with Gothic elements, it is considered by many to be one of Doyle's finest works, with the author himself calling it his best story. The story, alongside the rest of the Sherlock Holmes canon, has become a defining part of detective fiction. It has been adapted for television, film, theatre, radio and a video game. It is part of the exhibit at the Sherlock Holmes Museum. The theatrical adaptation was written and produced by Doyle himself, directed by and starring Lyn Harding as Grimesby Roylott. The role of Holmes was played by H. A. Saintsbury. Doyle famously clashed with Harding ove ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strand Magazine
''The Strand Magazine'' was a monthly British magazine founded by George Newnes, composed of short fiction and general interest articles. It was published in the United Kingdom from January 1891 to March 1950, running to 711 issues, though the first issue was on sale well before Christmas 1890. Its immediate popularity is evidenced by an initial sale of nearly 300,000. Sales increased in the early months, before settling down to a circulation of almost 500,000 copies a month, which lasted well into the 1930s. It was edited by Herbert Greenhough Smith from 1891 to 1930. The popularity of Sherlock Holmes became widespread after first appearing in the magazine in 1891. The magazine's original offices were on Burleigh Street off The Strand, London. It was revived in 1998 as a quarterly magazine. Publication history ''The Strand Magazine'' was founded by George Newnes in 1890, and its first edition was dated January 1891. The magazine's original offices were located on Burleigh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
