Of course it's very hampering being a detective,
when you don't know anything about detecting,
and when nobody knows that you're doing detection,
and you can't have people up to
cross-examine them, and you have neither the energy
nor the means to make proper inquiries; and,
in short, when you're doing the whole thing in a
thoroughly amateur, haphazard way.
-A.A. Milne (The Red House Mystery)
A.A. Milne is, of course, best remembered for his series of Winnie the
Pooh tales. In addition, he wrote for the famous British humor magazine
Punch, was a fine playwright and, though he served in WWI, became an outspoken
pacifist. In the midst of all this, he wrote one of the classic English
drawing room mysteries--The Red House Mystery. The book ends
on a note which seems to imply that further adventures will follow, but
sadly none did.
The Red House is a British manor, home to Mark Ablett, and gathering
place for his fun loving friends. But the bucolic setting is disrupted
when Ablett's long lost brother, black sheep of the family, is murdered
and Mark goes missing. Two guests, Antony Gillingham, a sort of Holmsian
jack of all trades, and Bill Beverley, a mildly dense Watson-like sidekick,
take it upon themselves to solve the crime. What follows is a reasonably
dated but still amusing "intuitive" mystery. Raymond Chandler apparently
went out of his way to attack the story as one of the worst examples of
the genre, wholly lacking in genuine criminological methodology and requiring
enormous intuitive leaps on the part of the "detectives". Still,
take it for what it is and it offers a pleasant enough reading experience.
(Reviewed:23-Jan-00)
Grade: (C+)
Websites:
Book-related and General Links:
-Encyclopaedia
Britannica: Your search: "Milne A A "
-A.
A. Milne (1882-1956) (kirjasto)
-Alan
Alexander Milne
-ESSAY:
Who Was A.A. Milne?
-ESSAY:
Cozy Corner: ELEMENTARY, MY DEAR EEYORE: A.A. Milne's Foray into Mystery
(Elizabeth Foxwell, Mystery Pages)
-British
Golden Age: Intuitionist Writers: A.A. Milne
-ETEXT:
The Red House Mystery A.A. Milne (Black Mask Online)
-PUZZLE:
The Red House Mystery Crossword Puzzle
-Adventures
of the REAL Winnie-the-Pooh (New York Public Library)
-Pooh Corner
-The
Hundred Acre Wood
-Christopher
Robin's Winnie-the-Pooh Character Guide And FAQ
-Galleon's
Lap
-winnie
the pooh
-Willie
& Dyllan's Winnie the Pooh Webrings
-ARTICLE:
NOW 60, MILNE'S 'POOH' IS BIG IN SOVIET UNION (DENA KLEIMAN,
NY Times)
-ESSAY:
'WINNIE ILLE PU' NEARLY XXV YEARS LATER (Edwin McDowell, NY Times
Book Review)
-ESSAY:
100 CANDLES FOR MILNE (Robert E. Hall, NY Times Book Review)
-ESSAY:
Finding the Corners In Pooh's Real Forest (SUSAN ALLEN TOTH, NY Times
Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of A. A. MILNE: The Man Behind Winnie-the-Pooh By Ann Thwaite (Nina
Auerbach, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
Janet Adam Smith: Poohdom, NY Review of Books
A.A. Milne: The Man Behind Winnie-the-Pooh
by Ann Thwaite
-REVIEW:
of INVENTING WONDERLAND: The Lives and Fantasies of Lewis Carroll,
Edward Lear, J. M. Barrie, Kenneth Grahame and A. A. Milne By Jackie
Wullschlager (Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, NY Times)
-REVIEW:
Janet Adam Smith: Unchildish Activities, NY Review of Books
Don't Tell the Grown-ups: Subversive
Children's Literature by Alison Lurie
-REVIEW:
of SECRET GARDENS: The Golden Age of Children's Literature. By Humphrey
Carpenter (Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, NY Times)
-REVIEW:
of SECRET GARDENS: A Study of the Golden Age of Children's Literature.
By Humphrey Carpenter (Jonathen Cott, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
Janet Adam Smith: Big Little Books, NY Review of Books
Secret Gardens: A Study of the
Golden Age of Children's Literature by Humphrey Carpenter
-REVIEW:
of THE OXFORD COMPANION TO CHILDREN'S LITERATURE By Humphrey Carpenter
and Mari Prichard (Eudora Welty, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
F. W. Bateson: Let There Be Light, NY Review of Books
The New Oxford Book of English
Light Verse chosen and edited by Kingsley Amis
-REVIEW:
Quentin Bell: Fine Art for Kids, NY Review of Books
The Work of E.H. Shepard edited
by Rawle Knox
Edward Ardizzone: Artist and Illustrator
by Gabriel White
Nicholas and the Fast Moving Diesel
by Edward Ardizzone
A Child's Christmas in Wales by
Dylan Thomas and illustrated by Edward Ardizzone
-ESSAY:
CHILDREN'S BOOKS; Has Poetry for Kids Become A Child's Garden of Rubbish?
(Liz Rosenberg, NY Times Book Review)
-Brief
Outline of Classic Mystery Fiction
BENJAMIN HOFF:
-ESSAY:
Peace Is a Bookshelf Away (PATRICIA LEIGH BROWN, NY Times Book
Review)
Other recommended books by A.A. Milne:
-The
Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh (A. A. Milne, Ernest H. Shepard--Illustrator)
-The
Complete Poems of Winnie-the-Pooh (A. A. Milne, Ernest H. Shepard--Illustrator)
If you like Pooh, try:
-The
Tao of Pooh (1982)(Benjamin Hoff)
-The
Pooh Perplex: a Freshman Casebook (Frederick C. Crews)[out of
print, try ABE.com]
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