Freeman Wills Crofts

Freeman Wills Crofts (June 1, 1879 Dublin - April 11, 1957 Worthing) was an Irish-English mystery author, one of the 'Big Four' of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.

Birth and education

Crofts' father had the same name as him, Freeman Wills Crofts, and he was a surgeon-lieutenant in the Army Medical Service, but he died before the young Freeman Wills Crofts was born. His mother, nee Celia Frances Wise, re-married the Venerable Jonathan Harding, Vicar of Gilford, County Down, and Archdeacon of Dromore, and Crofts was brought up in the Gilford vicarage.

He attended Methodist College and Campbell College in Belfast. At the age of eighteen, he was apprenticed to his maternal uncle, Berkeley Deane Wise, who was chief engineer of the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway. He held various positions in railway engineering, becoming Chief Assistant Engineer at the Railway, then known as the L.M.S. Northern Counties Committee.

Writing career

In 1919, during an absence from work due to illness, Crofts wrote his first novel, "The Cask" (1920), which established him as a new master of detective fiction. Crofts continued to write steadily, producing a book almost every year for thirty years, in addition to a number of short stories and plays.

He is best remembered for his favourite detective, Inspector Joseph French, who was introduced in his fifth book, "Inspector French's Greatest Case" (1924). Inspector French always set about unravelling each of the mysteries presented him in a workmanlike, exacting manner - this approach set him apart from most other fictional sleuths.

In 1929, he abandoned his railway engineering career and became a full-time writer. He settled in the village of Blackheath, near Guildford, in Surrey, and a number of his books are set in the Guildford area, including "The Hog's Back Mystery" (1933) and "Crime at Guildford" (1935). Many of his stories have a railway theme, and his particular interest in the apparently unbreakable alibi often focussed on the intricacies of railway timetables. At the end of his life, he and his wife moved to Worthing, Sussex 1953, where they lived until his death in 1957, the year in which his last book was published.

Freeman Wills Crofts also wrote one religious book, "The Four Gospels in One Story", several short stories, and short plays for the BBC.

Marriage and affiliations

In 1912 he wed Mary Bellas Canning, the daughter of John J.C. Canning of Coleraine, Ireland, bank manager. They had no children.

He was a member, with Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie, of a London club with premises in Gerrard Street, called the Detection Club.

In 1939 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Reputation

Crofts was esteemed, not only by his regular readers, but also by his fellow writers of the so-called Golden Age of Detective Fiction. Agatha Christie included parodies of Inspector French alongside Sherlock Holmes and her own Hercule Poirot in "Partners in Crime" (1929). Raymond Chandler described him as "the soundest builder of them all when he doesn’t get too fancy" (in "The Simple Art of Murder"). His attention to detail and his concentration on the mechanics of detection makes him the forerunner of the "police procedural" school of crime fiction. However, it has also given rise to a suggestion of a certain lack of flair - Julian Symons describing him as of "the humdrum school". This may explain why his name has not remained as familiar as other more colourful and imaginative Golden Age writers, although he had 15 books included in the Penguin Books "green" series of the best detective novels and 36 of his books were in print in paperback in 2000.

List of works

Novels

* "The Cask" (1920)
* "The Ponson Case" (1921)
* "The Pit-Prop Syndicate" (1922)
* "The Groote Park Murder" (1923)
* "Inspector French's Greatest Case" (1924)
* "Inspector French and the Cheyne Mystery" (1926) aka "The Cheyne Mystery"
* "Inspector French and the Starvel Tragedy" (1927) aka "The Starvel Hollow Tragedy"
* "The Sea Mystery" (1928)
* "The Box Office Murders" (1929) aka "The Purple Sickle Murders"
* "Sir John Magill's Last Journey" (1930)
* "Mystery in the Channel" (1931) aka "Mystery in the English Channel"
* "Sudden Death" (1932)
* "Death on the Way" (1932) aka "Double Death"
* "The Hog's Back Mystery" (1933) aka "The Strange Case of Dr. Earle"
* "" (1934) aka "Wilful and Premeditated"
* "Mystery on Southampton Water" (1934) aka "Crime on the Solent"
* "Crime at Guildford" (1935) aka "The Crime at Nornes"
* "The Loss of the 'Jane Vosper"' (1936)
* "Man Overboard!" (1936) aka "Cold-Blooded Murder"
* "Found Floating" (1937)
* "The End of Andrew Harrison" (1938) aka "The Futile Alibi"
* "Antidote to Venom" (1938)
* "Fatal Venture" (1939) aka "Tragedy in the Hollow"
* "Golden Ashes" (1940)
* "James Tarrant, Adventurer" (1941) aka "Circumstantial Evidence"
* "The Losing Game" (1941) aka "A Losing Game"
* "Fear Comes to Chalfont" (1942)
* "The Affair at Little Wokeham" (1943) aka "Double Tragedy"
* "Enemy Unseen" (1945)
* "Death of a Train" (1946)
* "Silence for the Murderer" (1949)
* "French Strikes Oil" (1951) aka "Dark Journey"
* "Anything to Declare?" (1957)

hort Story Collections

* "Murderers Make Mistakes" (1947)
* "Many a Slip" (1955)
* "Mystery of the Sleeping Car Express and Other Stories" (1956)
** "The Mystery of the Sleeping Car Express" (1921)
** "Mr Pemberton's Commission"
** "The Greuze" (Inspector French)
** "The Level Crossing" (1933)
** "East Wind" (Inspector French)
** "The Parcel"
** "The Motive Shows the Man"
** "The Affair at Saltover Priory" (Inspector French)
** "The Landing Ticket" (Inspector French)
** "The Raincoat" (Inspector French)

Anthologies containing stories by Freeman Wills Crofts

* "Great Short Stories of Detection, Mystery and Horror" 2nd Series (1931)
* "Great Short Stories of Detection, Mystery and Horror" 3rd Series (1934)
* "The Mystery Book" (1934)
* "The Great Book of Thrillers" (1935)
* "Fifty Famous Detectives of Fiction" (1983)
* "The Scoop and Behind the Screen" (1983) (Originally published in "The Listener" (1931) and (1930), both written by members of The Detection Club)

Lost Short Stories

"These stories are known to have been published but no copies of the publications concerned are believed to exist today"
* "Nemesis", published in Round About [Guildford Round Table Christmas Annual, 1933]
* "Who Killed Cock Robin?", published in St Martin's Review [date unknown]

ource

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

External links

* [http://www.xs4all.nl/~embden11/Engels/crofts.htm A complete bibliography]
*
* [http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=2013 complete text of "The Pit Prop Syndicate"] from Project Gutenberg
* [http://members.aol.com/MG4273/crofts.htm Discussions on some of his works]