R. Austin Freeman

Richard Austin ( born 11 April 1862 in Marylebone, London, England; † September 28, 1943 in Gravesend, Kent, England) Freeman was a British crime writer. He wrote his novels and short stories also under the symbol R. Austin Freeman, Austin Freeman and under the pseudonym Clifford Ashdown.

Life and work

Richard Austin Freeman was the youngest son of five children of tailor Richard Freeman and his wife Mary Ann Dunn. R. Austin Freeman in 1880 made ​​training as a pharmacist and then began to study medicine at the Middlesex Hospital in London, where he graduated in 1886 with the acquisition of the Master of the Royal College of Surgeons. As a fresh doctorate doctor he married in 1887 Annie Elizabeth, with whom he had two sons. He then went as a young doctor in the West African Gold Coast Colony (present-day Ghana) to Accra. There, he accompanied from 1888 to 1889 on behalf of the British government as a doctor and navigator an expedition in the Ashanti Region and in the tribal area of Bontuku. About this expedition, he wrote the book Travels and Life in Ashanti and Jaman which was published in 1898. During this expedition, he was infected with the Blackwater fever. His health forbade the further stay in Africa. As a disabled Freeman in 1891 returned to London. He settled with his family in Gravesend, Kent, and practiced there as a doctor.

As a physician, he found only with difficulty to earn a living. Increasingly he devoted himself therefore to writing. Under the pseudonym Clifford Ashdown and in collaboration with a friend, the prison doctor and lawyer John James Pitcairn (1860-1936), appeared in 1902 his first novel, The Adventures of Romney Pringle. R. Freeman published in 1907 his first, incurred without cooperation detective novel The Red Thumb Mark. This novel was the successful launch of the Dr. Thorndyke series and also the best-selling crime novel in this series. With its protagonists, the coroner Dr. John Evelyn Thorndyke, Freeman had incorporated his scientific education, which he linked cleverly with the contemporary criminological knowledge. Factual conclusions can always support his fictional character Thorndyke with solid evidence he has in lengthy and complicated laboratory work, he informed his audience extensively about, gives. Pearson 's Magazine published some Freeman's short stories, including The Case of Oscar Brodsky (1912). A classic example of an inverted detective story in which the reader is presented at the beginning of the character of the offender. This short story was also used as a template film for the series " Detectives ," which was produced in 1964.

During the First World War he served as Captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps in Maidstone, Kent. During this time he was more active as a writer. After the war, Freeman shifted his interest and was a member of the " Eugenics Society " ( eugenics ), one of the many companies that demanded a predominance of "racially pure Anglo-Saxons ". From this perspective, Freeman wrote in 1921 the book Social Decay and Regeneration. Freeman blamed the industrial revolution as the cause of an alleged racial decline and favored a return to a healthy, large rural social order. Until 1942 R. Freeman wrote another thirty novels and short story collections.

R. Austin Freeman died on 28 September 1943 in his home in Gravesend.

Bibliography

  • Travels and Life in Ashanti and Jaman (1898 )
  • Social decay and regeneration ( 1921)

Dr. Thorndyke Novels

  • The Red Thumb Mark (1907 )
  • The Eye of Osiris (1911 )
  • The Mystery of 31 New Inn (1912 )
  • A Silent Witness ( 1914)
  • Helen Vardon 's Confession (1922 )
  • The Cat's Eye ( 1923)
  • The Mystery of Angelina Frood (1924 )
  • The Shadow of the Wolf (1925 )
  • The D' Arblay Mystery ( 1926)
  • A Certain Dr Thorndyke (1927 )
  • As a Thief in the Night (1928 )
  • Mr Potter Mack's Oversight (1930 )
  • Pontifex, Son and Thorndyke (1931 )
  • When Rogues Fall Out (1932 )
  • Dr Thorndyke Intervenes (1933 )
  • For the Defence: Dr Thorndyke (1934 )
  • The Penrose Mystery ( 1936)
  • Felo de se? (1937 )
  • The Stoneware Monkey (1938 )
  • Mr Polton Explains (1940 )
  • The Jacob Street Mystery ( 1942)

Dr. Thorndyke short stories (selection)

  • The Case of Oscar Brodsky
  • A Case of Premeditation
  • The Echo of a Mutiny
  • A wastrel 's Romance
  • The Stranger 's Latchkey
  • The Blue Sequin
  • The Mandarin 's Pearl
  • The Aluminium Dagger
  • The Magic Casket
  • The Case of the White Footprints
  • The New Jersey sphinx
  • The Touchstone
  • A Fisher of Men
  • The Stolen Ingots
  • The Funeral Pyre
  • The Puzzle Lock
  • The Green Check Jacket
  • The Seal of Nebuchadnezzar
  • A Mystery of the Sand -hills
  • The Apparition of Burling Court
  • The Mysterious Visitor
  • The Magic Casket
  • The Contents of a Mare 's Nest
  • The Stalking Horse

Other novels and short stories

All novels and short stories under the pseudonym Clifford Ashdown were written in collaboration with Dr. John Pitcairn.

  • The Adventures of Romney Pringle, by Clifford Ashdown (1902 )
  • From a Surgeon 's Diary, by Clifford Ashdown (1904-1905)
  • The Golden Pool: A Story of a Forgotten Mine ( 1907)
  • The Unwilling Adventurer (1913 )
  • The uttermost farthing (1913 ), published in the USA as A Savant 's Vendetta
  • The Exploits of Danby Croker (1916 )
  • The Great Portrait Mystery ( 1918)
  • The Surprising Experiences of Mr Shuttlebury Cobb (1927 )
  • Flighty Phyllis (1928 )
  • The Queen's Treasure, by Clifford Ashdown (1975 )
April 11 Integrated Authority File
90408
de