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| Adelia Chiswell, member of the Red Cross Women's Motor Corps |
The luncheon, which is open to nonmembers, will be held at Capitol Skyline Hotel (Metro stop: Navy Yard) from 12–2 pm and is $35 per person. To RSVP, visit the AOI Web site.
Showing posts with label Frances Noyes Hart. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Frances Noyes Hart. Show all posts
Monday, February 12, 2018
Foxwell Mar16 talk and signing, "DC Women in World War I."
The luncheon, which is open to nonmembers, will be held at Capitol Skyline Hotel (Metro stop: Navy Yard) from 12–2 pm and is $35 per person. To RSVP, visit the AOI Web site.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Cornerstone: The Bellamy Trial
by Frances Noyes Hart.
Note: This continues my occasional series on the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone list (those mysteries deemed essential by Howard Haycraft and Ellery Queen).
"We're all so everlastingly canny and competent and sophisticated these days, going mechanically through a mechanical world, sharpening up our little emotions, tuning up our little sensations— and suddenly there's a cry of 'Murder!' in the streets, and we stop and look back, shuddering, over our shoulder—and across us falls the shadow of a savage with a bloodstained club, and we know that it's good and dangerous and beautiful to be alive."—Frances Noyes Hart, The Bellamy Trial 5-6
As today is the birthday of Frances Newbold Noyes Hart, it's fitting to discuss her terrific novel that appears on the Cornerstone list, The Bellamy Trial (1927). Taking place entirely in the courtroom, the case involves a beautiful woman found dead in a cottage; her husband and a female friend, both accused of killing her; and the friend's husband, who is believed to be the victim's lover. Assorted ex-fiancés, family members, colorful servants, and other witnesses parade to the witness stand, appearing reliable and unreliable by turns, as prosecutor and defense attorney indulge in courtroom pyrotechnics and the weary judge attempts to maintain order. Particularly fine are Hart's portrayal of the circus atmosphere of a notorious trial and her characterization of a jaded male reporter and his dewy-eyed female counterpart at the "Philadelphia Planet" (Hart's father, Frank Brett Noyes, was the publisher of the Washington Star. Planet/star—get it?). The writing is elegant and suspenseful, although I guessed the perpetrator, and the book ends with éclat.
Hart (1890–1943) served as an overseas YMCA canteen worker during World War I and earned second prize for her short story "Contact" in the O Henry Memorial Prize competition in 1920. The Bellamy Trial is dedicated to "my favourite lawyer Edward Henry Hart"—her husband—and is based on New Jersey's Hall-Mills murder case, which also influenced F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. The Bellamy Trial is out of print in the United States—a distinct crime, in my view. I'm looking forward to my next read, Hart's Halloween mystery Hide in the Dark (1929), in which a coterie of bright young things revisits the site of a mutual friend's death 10 years later.
About the photo: Frances Noyes, bet. 1910 and 1920. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, reproduction number LC-DIG-ggbain-11227.
"We're all so everlastingly canny and competent and sophisticated these days, going mechanically through a mechanical world, sharpening up our little emotions, tuning up our little sensations— and suddenly there's a cry of 'Murder!' in the streets, and we stop and look back, shuddering, over our shoulder—and across us falls the shadow of a savage with a bloodstained club, and we know that it's good and dangerous and beautiful to be alive."—Frances Noyes Hart, The Bellamy Trial 5-6
As today is the birthday of Frances Newbold Noyes Hart, it's fitting to discuss her terrific novel that appears on the Cornerstone list, The Bellamy Trial (1927). Taking place entirely in the courtroom, the case involves a beautiful woman found dead in a cottage; her husband and a female friend, both accused of killing her; and the friend's husband, who is believed to be the victim's lover. Assorted ex-fiancés, family members, colorful servants, and other witnesses parade to the witness stand, appearing reliable and unreliable by turns, as prosecutor and defense attorney indulge in courtroom pyrotechnics and the weary judge attempts to maintain order. Particularly fine are Hart's portrayal of the circus atmosphere of a notorious trial and her characterization of a jaded male reporter and his dewy-eyed female counterpart at the "Philadelphia Planet" (Hart's father, Frank Brett Noyes, was the publisher of the Washington Star. Planet/star—get it?). The writing is elegant and suspenseful, although I guessed the perpetrator, and the book ends with éclat.
Hart (1890–1943) served as an overseas YMCA canteen worker during World War I and earned second prize for her short story "Contact" in the O Henry Memorial Prize competition in 1920. The Bellamy Trial is dedicated to "my favourite lawyer Edward Henry Hart"—her husband—and is based on New Jersey's Hall-Mills murder case, which also influenced F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. The Bellamy Trial is out of print in the United States—a distinct crime, in my view. I'm looking forward to my next read, Hart's Halloween mystery Hide in the Dark (1929), in which a coterie of bright young things revisits the site of a mutual friend's death 10 years later.
About the photo: Frances Noyes, bet. 1910 and 1920. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, reproduction number LC-DIG-ggbain-11227.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Rex Stout's picks, best detective tales.
Here are the choices of Nero Wolfe creator Rex Stout for the ten best detective stories (qtd. in Vincent Starrett, Books and Bipeds [New York: Argus, 1947] 82):The Moonstone (Wilkie Collins, 1868)
The Maltese Falcon (Dashiell Hammett, 1930)
The Benson Murder Case (S. S. Van Dine [Willard Huntington Wright], 1926)
The Documents in the Case (Dorothy L. Sayers and Robert Eustace [Eustace Robert Barton], 1930)
The Innocence of Father Brown (G. K. Chesterton, 1911)
Call Mr. Fortune (H. C. Bailey, 1920)
The Bellamy Trial (Frances [Newbold] Noyes Hart, 1927)
The Cask (Freeman Wills Crofts, 1920)
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (Agatha Christie, 1926)
Lament for a Maker (Michael Innes [J. I. M. Stewart], 1938)
Friday, August 10, 2007
Happy birthday, Dorothy B. Hughes and
Frances Noyes Hart.
MWA Grand Master Dorothy B. Hughes was born today in 1904, and author Frances Noyes Hart was born today in 1890.
Hughes (seen at left) is known for some legendary noir novels: In a Lonely Place (novel reissued by Feminist Press; film directed by Nicholas Ray and starring Humphrey Bogart); Ride the Pink Horse (memorably filmed by Robert Montgomery, who also appeared in a 1948 radio production of In a Lonely Place); The Fallen Sparrow (featuring a terrific John Garfield); and The Blackbirder, among others. In a Lonely Place provides a look into the mind of a serial killer, long before the modern spate of such novels, and Hughes skillfully shows the reader how the character became what he is.
A longtime mystery reviewer for the Albuquerque Tribune, Los Angeles Times, and other newspapers, Hughes died in 1993.
Frances Noyes Hart, a distant connection of Edith Wharton, served as a YMCA canteen worker in France during World War I and wrote three mystery novels, including The Bellamy Trial (1927, "probably ... the greatest mystery story written this century," wrote Herbert Carter in the American Mercury). Released as a film in 1929, The Bellamy Trial was based on New Jersey's Hall-Mills murder case, which also influenced F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Her other novels include the Halloween mystery Hide in the Dark (1929) and The Crooked Lane (1934). She also published a collection of short stories (Contact and Other Stories, 1923). Her story "Contact" won second place in the O Henry Memorial Prize competition in 1920 (other second-place winners were Fitzgerald and Alice Duer Miller). She died in 1943.
Both writers appear on the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone list: Hughes for her debut novel The So Blue Marble (1940), Hart for The Bellamy Trial. Both are out of print in the United States, although it appears you can still buy a French translation of The Bellamy Trial.
Frances Noyes Hart.
MWA Grand Master Dorothy B. Hughes was born today in 1904, and author Frances Noyes Hart was born today in 1890.
Hughes (seen at left) is known for some legendary noir novels: In a Lonely Place (novel reissued by Feminist Press; film directed by Nicholas Ray and starring Humphrey Bogart); Ride the Pink Horse (memorably filmed by Robert Montgomery, who also appeared in a 1948 radio production of In a Lonely Place); The Fallen Sparrow (featuring a terrific John Garfield); and The Blackbirder, among others. In a Lonely Place provides a look into the mind of a serial killer, long before the modern spate of such novels, and Hughes skillfully shows the reader how the character became what he is.A longtime mystery reviewer for the Albuquerque Tribune, Los Angeles Times, and other newspapers, Hughes died in 1993.
Frances Noyes Hart, a distant connection of Edith Wharton, served as a YMCA canteen worker in France during World War I and wrote three mystery novels, including The Bellamy Trial (1927, "probably ... the greatest mystery story written this century," wrote Herbert Carter in the American Mercury). Released as a film in 1929, The Bellamy Trial was based on New Jersey's Hall-Mills murder case, which also influenced F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Her other novels include the Halloween mystery Hide in the Dark (1929) and The Crooked Lane (1934). She also published a collection of short stories (Contact and Other Stories, 1923). Her story "Contact" won second place in the O Henry Memorial Prize competition in 1920 (other second-place winners were Fitzgerald and Alice Duer Miller). She died in 1943.Both writers appear on the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone list: Hughes for her debut novel The So Blue Marble (1940), Hart for The Bellamy Trial. Both are out of print in the United States, although it appears you can still buy a French translation of The Bellamy Trial.
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