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NEW - FROM
MERCAT
PRESS
Dick
Donovan
The
Glasgow
Detective
J E
Preston
Muddock
edited by
Bruce
Durie
192
pages paperback
ISBN:1841830887
Buy it
here |
Who was Dick
Donovan?
'Dick Donovan' was the eponym used by J E Preston Muddock for
almost 300 detective and mystery stories and 28 novels written between 1889 and
1914.
Muddock also had a successful career as a journalist and wrote
novels, historical fact and fiction, guide books and a rather self-aggrandising
autobiography. And, far from being an imitator of Conan Doyle and Sherlock
Holmes, Muddock’s fictional detective predated the Baker Street sleuth's
popularity and was,
for a time, equally admired.
Paradoxically, although critics consider his Donovan of great
importance to the genre of detective stories, his work is extremely hard to
find and almost forgotten.
Muddock wrote over 180 stories involving Dick Donovan, collected
as 14 or so books, but also used the same pen name for other, unrelated
works, presumably as the name “Dick Donovan” had greater commercial cachet than
his own, although Muddock himself regarded them as separate from and inferior to
his “real” writing, just as Conan Doyle felt that Sherlock Holmes overshadowed
his more serious works.
Muddock did not start the tradition of using a pen name the same
as that of the detective – Honeyman’s “James McGovan” stories did likewise, and
everyone was cashing in on the earlier publishing success of the real-life James
M’Levy, The Edinburgh Detective – but Muddock may well have embedded it as a
technique for the genre. It was later adopted by his American counterparts such
as Ellery Queen and Hank Jansen.
There is more on J E P Muddock here (Click to view) |
> The
earliest Donovan tales were set in Glasgow -
information here
> Dick Donovan detective stories were published
just after Conan Doyle wrote his
first Holmes story and long before he became well-known
information here
> J E P Muddock wrote over 180 Dick Donovan stories and 28 novels, plus over
100 other stories as "Dick Donovan" -
information here |
