John Dickson Carr

John Dickson Carr (November 30, 1906 - February 27, 1977) was a prolific American-born author of detective stories who also published under the pen names Carter Dickson, Carr Dickson, and Roger Fairbairn. He is generally regarded as one of the greatest writers of so-called "Golden Age" mysteries, complex, plot-driven stories in which the puzzle is paramount. Most of his many novels and short stories feature the elucidation, by an eccentric detective, of apparently impossible, and seemingly supernatural, crimes. He was influenced in this regard by the works of Gaston Leroux and by the Father Brown stories of G. K. Chesterton. Carr modeled his major detective, the fat and genial lexicographer Dr. Gideon Fell, on Chesterton.

Life and Works

Carr was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, the son of a sometime Democratic Congressman. He attended Hill School, where he was a mediocre student preoccupied with fledgling attempts at writing mystery stories. While studying abroad he married an Englishwoman, Clarice Cleaves, in 1931 and settled in England. They raised three children there before moving to the United States in 1948. Most of his books written through the mid-1950s are set in England or in Europe, and at one point there was speculation that "Carr" was a pen name used by the famous English humorist P. G. Wodehouse.

Related Topics:
Uniontown, Pennsylvania - Democratic - Congressman - 1931 - England - United States - 1948 - Europe - P. G. Wodehouse

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Carr was a master of the locked room mystery, in which a detective solves apparently impossible crimes. Examples of such crimes are murder inside a locked and sealed room, or the discovery of a dead body (strangled or knifed at close quarters) surrounded by snow or wet sand in which no footprints but the victim's are visible. The Dr. Fell mystery The Three Coffins (aka The Hollow Man) (1935), usually considered Carr's masterpiece, features crimes that are variations on both of these scenarios and that has a notable discourse by Dr. Fell on the nature of impossible crimes. It was selected as the best locked-room mystery of all time by a panel of mystery writers and Dr. Fell's discourse is sometimes printed as a stand-alone essay.

Related Topics:
Locked room mystery - The Three Coffins

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Many of the Fell novels feature two or more different impossible crimes, including He Who Whispers (1946) and The Case of the Constant Suicides (1941). The novel The Crooked Hinge (1938) weaves a seemingly impossible throat-slashing, witchcraft, an eerie automaton modelled on Johann Maelzel's chess player, and a case similar to that of the Tichborne claimant into what is often cited as one of the greatest classics of detective fiction. But even Carr's biographer, Douglas G. Greene (John Dickson Carr: The Man Who Explained Miracles), notes that the explanation, like many of Carr's in other books, seriously stetches plausibility and the reader's credulity.

Related Topics:
He Who Whispers - The Case of the Constant Suicides - The Crooked Hinge - Johann Maelzel - Tichborne claimant

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Besides Dr. Fell, Carr mysteries feature three other series detectives: Sir Henry Merrivale (H.M.), Henri Bencolin, and Colonel March. Many of the Merrivale novels, written under the Carter Dickson byline, rank with Carr's best work, including the highly praised The Judas Window (1938). A few of his works do not feature a series detective - the most famous, The Burning Court (1937) concerns witchcraft, poisoning, and a body that disappears from a sealed crypt in suburban Philadelphia; it was the basis for the French film La Chambre ardente (1962). The book is notable for an apparently supernatural ending that contradicts an earlier, rational explanation of the mysterious events.

Related Topics:
Sir Henry Merrivale - Henri Bencolin - Colonel March - The Judas Window - The Burning Court - La Chambre ardente

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Carr also wrote many radio scripts, particularly for the BBC, and some screenplays. His 1943 half-hour radio play Cabin B-13 was expanded into a series on CBS in the early 1950s for which Carr wrote all of the scripts, basing some on earlier works or re-presenting devices that Chesterton had used. That radio play was also expanded into the script for the 1953 film Dangerous Crossing, directed by Joseph M. Newman and starring Michael Rennie and Jeanne Crain.

Related Topics:
Radio - BBC - Screenplay - 1943 - CBS - 1950s - 1953 - Joseph M. Newman - Michael Rennie - Jeanne Crain

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1942's The Emperor's Snuffbox became the 1957 British film production That Woman Opposite.

Related Topics:
1957 - That Woman Opposite

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In 1950 Carr wrote a novel called The Bride of Newgate, set during the Napoleonic Wars, and this may be called the first full-length historical whodunnit. The Devil in Velvet and Fire, Burn! are the two historicals with which he himself was most pleased.

Related Topics:
1950 - The Bride of Newgate - Napoleonic Wars - Historical whodunnit - The Devil in Velvet - Fire, Burn!

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With Adrian Conan Doyle, the youngest son of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Carr wrote a majority of the Sherlock Holmes stories that were published in the 1954 collection The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes {ISBN 0157203383}.

Related Topics:
Adrian Conan Doyle - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - Sherlock Holmes - 1954 - The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes

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Late in life Carr developed an interest in the Southern United States, and a number of his last books are set there. He died in South Carolina.

Related Topics:
Southern United States - South Carolina

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