{"title":"Books by Edmund Crispin","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780008381004","title":"Bodies from the Library 4","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis annual anthology of rare stories of crime and suspense brings together tales from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction for the first time in book form, including a short novel by Christianna Brand.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMystery stories have been around for centuries—there are whodunits, whydunits and howdunits, including locked-room puzzles, detective stories without detectives, and crimes with a limited choice of suspects. Countless volumes of such stories have been published, but some are still impossible to find: stories that appeared in a newspaper, magazine or an anthology that has long been out of print; ephemeral works such as plays not aired, staged or screened for decades; and unpublished stories that were absorbed into an author’s archive when they died . . .\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHere for the first time are three never-before-published mysteries by Edmund Crispin, Ngaio Marsh and Leo Bruce, and two pieces written for radio by Gladys Mitchell and H. C. Bailey—the latter featuring Reggie Fortune. Together with a newly unearthed short story by Ethel Lina White that inspired Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes, and a complete short novel by Christianna Brand, this diverse mix of tales by some of the world’s most popular classic crime writers contains something for everyone. Complete with indispensable biographies by Tony Medawar of all the featured authors, the fourth volume in the series Bodies from the Library once again brings into the daylight the forgotten, the lost and the unknown.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":57685883945333,"sku":"9780008380977","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":43128990859442,"sku":"9780008381004","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780008381004_cae81f05-b82d-4409-9807-e54f71e59b7a.jpg?v=1792599109"},{"product_id":"9780008275150","title":"The Case of the Gilded Fly","description":"The very first case for Oxford-based sleuth Gervase Fen, one of the last of the great Golden Age detectives. As inventive as Agatha Christie, as hilarious as P.G. Wodehouse, this is the perfect entry point to discover the delightful detective stories of Edmund Crispin – crime fiction at its quirkiest and best.A pretty but spiteful young actress with a talent for destroying men’s lives is found dead in a college room just yards from the office of the unconventional Oxford don Gervase Fen. Anyone who knew the girl would gladly have shot her, but can Fen discover who did shoot her, and why?Published during the Second World War, The Case of the Gilded Fly introduced English professor and would-be detective Gervase Fen, one of crime fiction’s most irrepressible and popular sleuths. A classic locked-room mystery filled with witty literary allusions, it was the debut of ‘a new writer who calls himself Edmund Crispin’ (in reality the choral and film composer Bruce Montgomery), later described by The Times as ‘One of the last exponents of the classical English detective story . . . elegant, literate, and funny.’This Detective Story Club classic is introduced by Douglas G. Greene, who reveals how Montgomery’s ambition to emulate John Dickson Carr resulted in a string of successful and distinctive Golden Age detective novels and an invitation from Carr himself to join the exclusive Detection Club.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43201201930418,"sku":"9780008275150","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780008275150.jpg?v=1785658712"},{"product_id":"9780008124120","title":"The Moving Toyshop","description":"As inventive as Agatha Christie, as hilarious as P.G. Wodehouse – discover the delightful detective stories of Edmund Crispin. Crime fiction at its quirkiest and best.Richard Cadogan, poet and would-be bon vivant, arrives for what he thinks will be a relaxing holiday in the city of dreaming spires. Late one night, however, he discovers the dead body of an elderly woman lying in a toyshop and is coshed on the head. When he comes to, he finds that the toyshop has disappeared and been replaced with a grocery store. The police are understandably skeptical of this tale but Richard's former schoolmate, Gervase Fen (Oxford professor and amateur detective), knows that truth is stranger than fiction (in fiction, at least). Soon the intrepid duo are careening around town in hot pursuit of clues but just when they think they understand what has happened, the disappearing-toyshop mystery takes a sharp turn…Erudite, eccentric and entirely delightful – Before Morse, Oxford's murders were solved by Gervase Fen, the most unpredictable detective in classic crime fiction.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43201206747314,"sku":"9780008124120","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780008124120.jpg?v=1785658593"},{"product_id":"9780008228033","title":"Swan Song","description":"As inventive as Agatha Christie, as hilarious as P.G. Wodehouse – discover the delightful detective stories of Edmund Crispin. Crime fiction at its quirkiest and best.When an opera company gathers in Oxford for the first post-war production of Wagner's Die Meistersinger its happiness is soon soured by the discovery that the unpleasant Edwin Shorthouse will be singing a leading role. Nearly everyone involved has reason to loathe Shorthouse but who amongst them has the fiendish ingenuity to kill him in his own locked dressing room?In the course of this entertaining adventure, eccentric Oxford don and amateur sleuth Gervase Fen has to unravel two murders, cope with the unpredictability of the artistic temperament, and attempt to encourage the course of true love.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43201212842162,"sku":"9780008228033","price":11.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780008228033.jpg?v=1785658676"},{"product_id":"9780008318789","title":"Bodies from the Library 2","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis anthology of rare stories of crime and suspense brings together 15 tales from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction for the first time in book form, including newly discovered stories by Dorothy L. Sayers and Edmund Crispin that have never previously been published.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith the Golden Age of detective fiction shining ever more brightly thanks to the recent reappearance of many forgotten crime novels, Bodies from the Library offers a rare opportunity to read lost stories from the first half of the twentieth century by some of the genre’s most accomplished writers. This second volume is a showcase for popular figures of the Golden Age, in stories that even their most ardent fans will not be aware of.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt includes uncollected and unpublished stories by acclaimed queens and kings of crime fiction, from Helen Simpson, Ethel Lina White, E.C.R. Lorac, Christianna Brand, Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers, to S.S. Van Dine, Jonathan Latimer, Clayton Rawson, Cyril Alington and Antony and Peter Shaffer (writing as Peter Antony). This book also features two highly readable radio scripts by Margery Allingham (involving Jack the Ripper) and John Rhode, plus two full-length novellas – one from a rare magazine by Q Patrick, the other an unpublished Gervase Fen mystery by Edmund Crispin, written at the height of his career. It concludes with another remarkable discovery: ‘The Locked Room’ by Dorothy L. Sayers, a never-before-published case for Lord Peter Wimsey!\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSelected and introduced by Tony Medawar, who also provides fascinating pen portraits of each author, Bodies from the Library 2 is an indispensable collection for any bookshelf.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43201231192242,"sku":"9780008318789","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780008318789.jpg?v=1785658860"},{"product_id":"9780008530570","title":"The Glimpses of the Moon","description":"As inventive as Agatha Christie, as hilarious as P.G. Wodehouse – discover the delightful detective stories of Edmund Crispin. Crime fiction at its quirkiest and best.When a decapitated head is seen floating down the river in the Devon village of Aller, the rural calm is shattered. Soon the corpses are multiplying, and the entire community is involved in the hunt for the murderer.Whilst many chase false trails, it is left to Gervase Fen, Oxford don and amateur criminologist, to uncover the sordid truth…","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43201309081778,"sku":"9780008530570","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780008530570.jpg?v=1785658799"},{"product_id":"9780008530662","title":"‘We Know You’re Busy Writing…’","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe complete collection of published short stories of Edmund Crispin, together in one volume for the first time.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Detective stories are anti-social. It’s quite impossible to suppose that criminals don’t collect useful information from them, fantastic and far-fetched though they usually are.’\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGervase Fen disagrees with such a pompous assessment. If criminals studied detective stories properly, they would get away with . . . well . . . murder.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eForty-six detective stories by the great Edmund Crispin – a splendid hoard!\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMost of them feature his Oxford don, Gervase Fen, and Inspector Humbleby of Scotland Yard, and the cases turn upon a fine assortment of clues – dandelions and hearing aids, a bloodstained cat and a Leonardo drawing, a corpse with an alibi and a truly poisonous letter . . . there seems no limit to the intricacy of Edmund Crispin’s invention or the sparkle of his wit.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCompiled from Beware of the Trains, Fen Country and other disparate sources, and concluding with the recently discovered Christmas novella The Hours of Darkness, this is a long-overdue treasury of original, often startling and invariably entertaining tales by one of the acknowledged masters of the detective story. Erudite and complex, succinct yet leisurely, it is classic crime at its finest.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43201320648882,"sku":"9780008530662","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780008530662.jpg?v=1785658803"},{"product_id":"9780008530518","title":"Frequent Hearses","description":"As inventive as Agatha Christie, as hilarious as P.G. Wodehouse – discover the delightful detective stories of Edmund Crispin. Crime fiction at its quirkiest and best.When young actress Gloria Scott throws herself from Waterloo Bridge, the news sends shockwaves through her film studio. Luckily Gervase Fen is in London to investigate.But when someone acts fast to cover up any evidence – removing all signs of Ms Scott’s identity from her apartment and poisoning a suspicious cameraman – the truth is hard to find…","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43201353187506,"sku":"9780008530518","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780008530518.jpg?v=1785658796"},{"product_id":"9780008530549","title":"The Long Divorce","description":"As inventive as Agatha Christie, as hilarious as P.G. Wodehouse – discover the delightful detective stories of Edmund Crispin. Crime fiction at its quirkiest and best.Long inhabited by a collection of profoundly offbeat locals, there has been a recent influx of the newly rich and well to do arriving in the village of Cotten Abbas … and not everyone is happy about it. New arrivals are receiving anonymous letters that know a little too much about dark secrets and dirty laundry.Gervase Fen is summoned to the scene, but soon finds more than he bargained for. A suicide on Friday, a murder by Sunday, and some villagers that seem hell bent on keeping this mystery unsolved…","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43201353220274,"sku":"9780008530549","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780008530549.jpg?v=1785658796"},{"product_id":"9781805226086","title":"A Case of the Claws","description":"Soft paws come with sharp claws...It's deep winter. Time to light the fire, pull up a blanket and curl up with your cat. But is your feline friend playing innocent? What were they up to while you were out of sight?Slink through shadows in these classic cat-themed mystery tales from beloved crime authors Catherine Aird, Edmund Crispin, Patricia Highsmith and Ellis Peters. A Case of the Claws bring a thrilling winter chill to the festive season and asks: are these furry friends the guardians of our secrets or omens of misfortune?","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":55896471503221,"sku":"9781805226086","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781805226086_da7f9250-3c88-493e-92fa-cb045a163f22.jpg?v=1786028160"},{"product_id":"9780008124182","title":"Holy Disorders","description":"As inventive as Agatha Christie, as hilarious as P.G. Wodehouse – discover the delightful detective stories of Edmund Crispin. Crime fiction at its quirkiest and best.Holy Disorders takes Oxford don and part time detective Gervase Fen to the town of Tolnbridge, where he is happily bounding around with a butterfly net until the cathedral organist is murdered, giving Fen the chance to play sleuth. The man didn't have an enemy in the world, and even his music was inoffensive: could he have fallen foul of a nest of German spies or of the local coven of witches, ominously rumored to have been practicing since the 17th century?","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56220633891189,"sku":"9780008124182","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780008124182_d2ea787d-df1b-47ef-a3bd-9cd6e6351a21.jpg?v=1786033083"},{"product_id":"9780008124151","title":"Love Lies Bleeding","description":"As inventive as Agatha Christie, as hilarious as P.G. Wodehouse – discover the delightful detective stories of Edmund Crispin. Crime fiction at its quirkiest and best.Castrevenford school is preparing for Speech Day and English professor and amateur sleuth Gervase Fen is called upon to present the prizes. However, the night before the big day, strange events take place that leave two members of staff dead. The Headmaster turns to Professor Fen to investigate the murders.While disentangling the facts of the case, Mr Fen is forced to deal with student love affairs, a kidnapping and a lost Shakespearean manuscript. By turns hilarious and chilling, Love Lies Bleeding is a classic of the detective genre.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56220938797429,"sku":"9780008124151","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780008124151_2648c74d-4645-4280-8af2-a36d9b3fca86.jpg?v=1785658593"},{"product_id":"9780008228064","title":"Buried for Pleasure","description":"\u003cp\u003eAs inventive as Agatha Christie, as hilarious as P.G. Wodehouse – discover the delightful detective stories of Edmund Crispin. Crime fiction at its quirkiest and best.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the sleepy English village of Sanford Angelorum, professor and amateur detective Gervase Fen is taking a break from his books to run for Parliament. At first glance, the village he's come to canvass appears perfectly peaceful, but Fen soon discovers that appearances can be deceptive: someone in the village has discovered a dark secret and is using it for blackmail. Anyone who comes close to uncovering the blackmailer's identity is swiftly dispatched. As the joys of politics wear off, Fen sets his mind to the mystery but finds himself caught up in a tangled tale of eccentric psychiatrists, escaped lunatics, beautiful women and lost heirs.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eErudite, eccentric and entirely delightful – Before Morse, Oxford’s murders were solved by Gervase Fen, the most unpredictable detective in classic crime fiction.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56221324673397,"sku":"9780008228064","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780008228064_91a11d0c-7690-4a8c-abf9-bfa06a704866.jpg?v=1786033105"},{"product_id":"9780008530600","title":"Beware of the Trains","description":"\u003cp\u003eA collection of 16 short stories from Edmund Crispin featuring his beloved amateur detective, Gervase Fen.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCrime fiction at its quirkiest and best. Who burglarised the train heading for Victoria Station, and whatever became of its conductor? Did the village idiot or Mrs Foley murder the mean-spirited Edgar Foley, or could the constable be responsible for the devious deed? Who on Earth will be able to untangle the affair of the disappearing car, the black necktie, and the abortive theft?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEnter Gervase Fen, Oxford professor and sometime super-sleuth, an expert at solving cases that baffle even the most astute policemen.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThese sixteen short classics by a master of the modern detective story will test your crime solving abilities as well; Edmund Crispin has provided all the clues you need to detect the solution, using logic and common sense. Can you meet the challenge?\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56367675703669,"sku":"9780008530600","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780008530600_9707493c-6f42-4803-9f08-78bb3402464a.jpg?v=1785658800"},{"product_id":"9780008530631","title":"Fen Country","description":"Dandelions and hearing aids, a bloodstained cat, a Leonardo drawing, a corpse with an alibi, a truly poisonous letter …These are just some of the unusual clues that Oxford don\/detective Gervase Fen and his friend Inspector Humbleby are confronted with in this sparkling collection of short mystery stories by one of the great masters of detective fiction.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56367679046005,"sku":"9780008530631","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780008530631_5f8bdaee-fca0-48f1-abf7-272959fa9276.jpg?v=1785658802"},{"product_id":"puzzles-of-the-parish","title":"Puzzles of the Parish","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e“I think that it is desirable to discuss the affair – here, in the room in which the Bishop’s body was found.”\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA pernicious parson outwits the thieves of a priceless chalice from the parish treasury. A beloved vicar contemplates a perfect crime when a blackmailer comes knocking. Poisoned pen letters lead to a fall from grace for a rector’s wife, and a suspicious fall from the second storey for the rector.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGathered here in this new collection are some of the greatest mystery tales in which the tendrils of crime steal into the churchyard, featuring clergymen and nuns as victims, amateur sleuths and villainous perpetrators of the devil’s work. Replete with a fascinating introduction and notes from one of the guiding lights of crime fiction, Martin Edwards, this anthology delivers cosy brainteasers and fiendishly-fashioned stories with a sting in the tail, from a congregation of writers including Joyce Porter, H. C. Bailey, Cyril Hare and Edmund Crispin.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57481425748341,"sku":"9780712369404","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780712369404.jpg?v=1786089686"},{"product_id":"complete-gervase-fen-volume-hb","title":"THE COMPLETE GERVASE FEN VOLUME 1","description":"\u003cp\u003eVolume 1 of Edmund Crispin’s Gervase Fen novels, collected together for the first time.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTHE CASE OF THE GILDED FLYA pretty but spiteful young actress with a talent for destroying men’s lives is found dead in a college room just yards from the office of the unconventional Oxford don Gervase Fen. Anyone who knew the girl would gladly have shot her, but can Fen discover who did shoot her, and why?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHOLY DISORDERS\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHoly Disorders takes Oxford don and part time detective Gervase Fen to the town of Tolnbridge, where he is happily bounding around with a butterfly net until the cathedral organist is murdered, giving Fen the chance to play sleuth. The man didn't have an enemy in the world, and even his music was inoffensive: could he have fallen foul of a nest of German spies or of the local coven of witches, ominously rumoured to have been practising since the 17th century?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTHE MOVING TOYSHOP\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRichard Cadogan, poet and would-be bon vivant, arrives for what he thinks will be a relaxing holiday in the city of dreaming spires. Late one night, however, he discovers the dead body of an elderly woman lying in a toyshop and is coshed on the head. When he comes to, he finds that the toyshop has disappeared and been replaced with a grocery store. The police are understandably skeptical of this tale but Richard's former schoolmate, Gervase Fen, knows that truth is stranger than fiction (in fiction, at least). Soon the intrepid duo are careening around town in hot pursuit of clues but just when they think they understand what has happened, the disappearing-toyshop mystery takes a sharp turn…\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57495419617653,"sku":"9780008530709","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}]}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-edmund-crispin.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}