Vincent Starrett
Charles Vincent Emerson Starrett ( born October 26, 1886 in Toronto / Ontario, † January 5, 1974 in Chicago / Illinois), was a Canadian- American journalist, essayist, writer and bibliophile.
Life
Vincent Starrett was the eldest of the four sons of Robert Polk and Margaret Starrett Starrett Deniston (nee Young). The family left in the late 1890s Toronto and moved to Chicago. Vincent Starrett attended the John Marshall High School, left this two months before the conclusion of 1906 and began his journalistic work as a junior reporter at the Chicago Inter Ocean. Two years later joined Starrett as a crime reporter for the Chicago Daily News, where he later worked as a columnist. In 1914 he went as a political correspondent in the Washington bureau. The local editors sent him to Mexico as a war correspondent to report on the fight Pancho Villa against the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz. In 1917, he left the paper to devote himself to writing full-time and still published in the same year his first book, The Mystery of Sam Houston. Until 1930, he wrote many stories for pulp magazines and wrote some 30 years book reviews for the Chicago Tribune, one of which appeared a large part in his book Books Alive in 1940.
1912 was found for Starrett the opportunity for an interview with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, with whom he wanted to talk about the main protagonists Sherlock Holmes. Since that time, Starrett was an unqualified admirer of Doyle and Holmes. In 1920 he published his successful Sherlock Holmes pastiche The Unique Hamlet: A Hitherto Unchronicled Adventure of Mr. Sherlock Holmes. His most famous work was the imaginary biography Holmes The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, published in 1933.
In December 1934 Christopher Morley teamed up with Vincent Starrett and other supporters of Doyle and Holmes, the Baker Street Irregulars known to date ( BSI), which deals with dozens of associations, so-called Sherlockian Scion Societies, spread. The third branch of the BSI Starrett founded in Chicago in 1943, along with Charles Collins of the Chicago Tribune, the head of the Newberry Library in Chicago Stanley Pargellis and Horace Bridges. They called their union after Doyle's third novel The Hound of the Baskervilles (Eng. The Hound of the Baskervilles ).
Vincent Starrett died in 1974 penniless. It was not until his 100th birthday on October 26, 1986, donated friends a memorial stone for his grave at the Graceland Cemetery in Chicago. German translations of his works are not available.
Awards / Honors
David Lehman, author and teacher at New York University The New School, founder and chief editor of the anthology series The Best American Poetry, created a comprehensive in various categories and 159 items list of the most important, the development of crime fiction influencing works together. Vincent Starrett found there with his imaginary biography The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes in the category Resource Books.
In Ellery Queen's " Queen's Quorum " of the 106 most important collections of short stories of the crime genre itself Starrett immortalized for the year 1920 with his story The Unique Hamlet: A Hitherto Unchronicled Adventure of Mr. Sherlock Holmes.
The well-known critic, English professor and two-time winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Awards - Category Best literary criticism of the Mystery Writers of America ( MWA) James Sandoe, published in his " Honor Roll of Crime Fiction" 217 of the most important works of the thriller genre between 1841. Starrett 1945 and found there three times: in 1928 as editor of the anthology Fourteen Great Detective Stories, in 1936 for his novel Midnight and Percy Jones and also as editor for the anthology World 's Great Spy Stories in 1944.