Philip K. Dick and Blade Runner at Cornell.

Sean Young in
Blade Runner

The online exhibition "Android Dreams" at Cornell University looks at Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) and its later noiresque film adaptation, Blade Runner (dir. Ridley Scott, 1982).

Nat Bk Festival video: Grimes, Turow, et al.

Scott Turow

The Library of Congress has posted various presentations from the 2010 National Book Festival. These feature, among others:

• Ken Follett
• Martha Grimes
• Karin Slaughter
• Peter Straub
• Scott Turow

A different bestseller list.

Applewood Books offers a change of pace from the typical bestseller list. At no. 5: the first Nancy Drew book, The Secret of the Old Clock, first published in 1930. At no. 6: The Tower Treasure, the first in the Hardy Boys series, first published in 1927.

Product of the day: "Got evidence?" mousepad.

The "got evidence?" mousepad, from the National Museum of Crime and Punishment.

H. G. Wells on US journalists.

Letters of Note features this cranky 1907 letter from H. G. Wells 

H. G. Wells.
Library of Congress,
Prints and Photographs
Division

after the publication of an interview. Plus ça change...?

Escape from Teheran, 1979.

The International Spy Museum's SpyCast recalls when the Canadian Embassy sheltered and aided six US diplomats in escaping from Iran during the hostage crisis (I well remember the photo after this episode of the Michigan billboard that faced the Canadian border. It featured the US and Canadian flags, and the message "Thank you, Canada.").

BBC Archive on Agatha Christie.

The BBC Archive offers various video pieces pertaining to Agatha Christie:

• Christie on "How to Write a Bestselling Novel" (1955)
• Various celebrations around the Christie play "The Mousetrap"
• An interview with Christie's second husband, archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan
• The place of Devon in Christie's work

Mystery vs. sci fi: E. X. Ferrars against John Wyndham.

As the sustainability of genre fiction is a topic of perpetual discussion, it seems there is nothing new under the sun. In April 1954, a spirited exchange in print occurred between John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris (aka John Wyndham, author of Day of the Triffids, 1951) and Morna Doris Brown (aka E. X. Ferrars [US] and Elizabeth Ferrars [UK], Detection Club member and a founder of the British Crime Writers Assn).

In "Roar of Rockets!" in the 2 Apr 1954 issue of John O'London's Weekly, Wyndham asserted that science fiction would replace mystery fiction.  Ferrars replied the following week in "No Danger to Detectives!".

Wyndham theorized that a shift in New York publishing to science fiction was because "there has been too much murder going on for too long." He stated, "The number of people who are bored with routine detective stories has been increasing.  . . . The present outbreak of rockets may be seen as the assault weapons softening up the detectives" (1–2). He dubbed some fictional detectives "long-toothed bores." However, he does not reserve his criticism to mysteries, addressing weaknesses in his own genre ("Wells's conceptions degenerated into a kind of super-gadgetry"). He also cited his choices for exemplary works (Vonnegut's Player Piano, Orwell's 1984, Lewis's cautionary It Can't Happen Here)—perhaps implying that mystery fiction could not propose their equals.

Ferrars, in her reply, pointed out that The Brothers Karamazov is a detective story and that both Shakespeare and Sophocles were concerned with murder. She also listed the strengths of the genre: "The detective story must deal with human emotions, with violence, fear, guilt, suspicion, courage, intelligence, and moral values . . . suspense must be created, curiosity stimulated” (2). Science fiction, she asserted, "cannot be redeemed by answering that fascinating question, whodunit? or give the reader the satisfaction of winning or losing in a game of wits with the writer."

Thankfully, Wyndham's prognostications have not come to pass. Indeed, it's hard to imagine one genre's fans doing a whole-scale jump to another, especially if they enjoy reading across genres.

Rod Serling: "The screenplay ... is written for a continuous performance."

Letters of Note features a January 1966 letter from Rod Serling protesting the insertion of commercials in films shown on TV.

Operation Pastorius: Nazis on US soil.

Spiegel discusses Operation Pastorius, the thwarted 1942 Nazi attempt to carry out sabotage operations on American soil.

Hammett Black Mask story on Selected Shorts.

Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op story "The Creeping Siamese" (1926) is featured on Selected Shorts, read by actor John Shea.

Book Show: Shirley Jackson.

Julie Harris and Russ
Tamblyn in The Haunting
(dir. Robert Wise, 1963)

Australia's Book Show discusses the work of Shirley Jackson ("The Lottery," The Haunting of Hill House, etc.).

Lincoln: Kidnapping target?

John Wilkes Booth,
ca. 1865. Library of
Congress, Prints and
Photographs Div.

Before that fateful Good Friday at Ford's Theater in 1865, John Wilkes Booth had planned to kidnap Abraham Lincoln, as history professor Terry Alford explains in this broadcast of the radio program With Good Reason.

In addition, short videos are posted on the History Channel Web site that highlight Library of Congress collections; they include Lincoln life masks and the items in his pockets on the day of the assassination. (Hat tip to the AHA blog)

Calling TJ Hooker: How to jump from a speeding car and other manly arts.

Page from a Walt Whitman
notebook, ca. 1860s. NYPL.

The Art of Manliness blog features such posts as "How to Jump from a Speeding Car" and "How to Fire a Handgun Safely and Correctly"; as well as one on the manly pocket notebook, carried by Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, and others.

Yale's "Superheroes in Court" exhibition.

Archie Andrews in court.
Will Betty and Veronica
stand by him? Life with 
Archie 18 (Jan. 1963).
Cover Browser

The Rare Books blog of Yale Law Library offers a few highlights of the exhibition "Superheroes in Court! Lawyers, Law, and Comic Books," including this May/June 1949 issue of Crime Detective Comics and this July 1960 issue of Detective Comics. The exhibition runs until December 16 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery at Yale's Lillian Goldman Law Library. (Hat tip to PhiloBiblos)

NLM: Early true crime pamphlets.

Rev. Herbert Hayden,
tried for the 1879 murder
of Mary Stannard. From
The Rev H. H. Hayden:
An Autobiography (1880)

The latest online exhibition from NLM's History of Medicine Division is "Most Horrible and Shocking Murders: True Crime and Murder Pamphlets in the Collection of the National Library of Medicine." It includes pamphlets from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

R. D. Wingfield this week on BBC Radio 7.

David Jason in
A Touch of Frost

This week on BBC Radio 7 R. D. Wingfield's Sergeant Fowler looks into a death in a fishing village in Outbreak of Fear. Wingfield (1928–2007) is best known for creating Inspector Jack Frost (played by David Jason in Touch of Frost). Go here for the schedule or to listen; episodes can usually be heard for a week after broadcast.

Eric Portman on BFI Screenonline.

Eric Portman in The
Spider and the Fly
(dir. Robert Hamer)

BFI Screenonline highlights the career of British actor Eric Portman (1903–69), including the Powell and Pressburger film The 49th Parallel (1941), the noir film Daybreak (1948), and his role as a police inspector in The Spider and the Fly (1949).

U-DE bookplates: Houdini et al.

Calimedico Library
bookplate, UC-Berkeley
William Augustus Brewer
Bookplate Collection

Among the approximately 3,000 items in the online William Augustus Brewer Bookplate Collection from University of Delaware Library (which will eventually number 13,000 items), bookplates from the following individuals are represented:

• Calvin Coolidge
• Harry Houdini
• Illustrator Howard Pyle (teacher of N. C. Wyeth)
• Eleanor Roosevelt and FDR
• Theodore Roosevelt

(Hat tip to PhiloBiblos)

Academy Chicago reissues Leo Bruce's Case with 4 Clowns (1939)

Just out from Academy Chicago Publishers is Leo Bruce's Case with 4 Clowns, which features his determined investigator Sergeant Beef. This is the first time this novel has been published in the United States in 70 years; it joins other Sergeant Beef reissues such as Case for Three Detectives.

Leo Bruce was the pseudonym of British poet, playwright, writer, and critic Rupert Croft-Cooke (1903–79), who was prosecuted for homosexuality in the 1950s; he recounts his experiences in The Verdict of You All (1955). His short story and play "Banquo's Chair" were adapted for the film The Fatal Witness (1945) and an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1959).

Watch episodes of Kraft Mystery Theatre.

I've been trawling the online archives of the Museum of Broadcast Communications (available with a free registration) for episodes of the Kraft Mystery Theatre (a series that began as the Kraft Television Theatre and had a name change under producer David Susskind). The Mystery Theatre had two incarnations: one in the 1950s and one in 1961–63.

Robert Lansing in
"Death for Sale,"
Kraft Mystery Theatre

The episodes available for viewing online have an impressive roster of actors and include:

•"Catch Fear by the Throat" (with Bradford Dillman and Steve Forrest; a state government official cannot remember the events of the previous night)

 • "Death for Sale" (with Robert Lansing, based on the book by Henry Kane; a cuckolded husband hires a hitman with unexpected results)

• "Death of a Dream" (with Robert Vaughn, dir. Robert Altman; a wife has an unexpected visitor: her on-the-lam husband)

• "The Fugitive Eye" (with Charlton Heston; a man witnesses a murder)

• "The Man Who Didn't Fly" (with William Shatner; three men take a plane, but only two emerge)

• "Presumption of Innocence" (with Colleen Dewhurst; a lawyer defends a man accused of killing his mentor)

Sadly, "The 87th Precinct" and "Killer's Choice," which are based on the work of Ed McBain/Evan Hunter, are not available for viewing.

And of course, there are all the Kraft recipes during the commercial breaks (e.g., frosted honeydew melon with jellied fruit filling. The "frosting" is cream cheese).

Update (9-6-11): Have been advised by the museum that the online archive is down for probably the next few months. Will update this post when I know more.

Update (11-23-11): Looks like the online archive is back up.

Clues 28.2: Cornell Woolrich, Vera Caspary, Arthur Conan Doyle, James Lee Burke, et al.

Volume 28, no. 2 of Clues: A Journal of Detection has been published, which offers among its highlights:

• Hilary A. Goldsmith on Darwinian echoes in Conan Doyle

• Clare Clarke on Arthur Morrison's Horace Dorrington, criminal-detective

• Christine Photinos on whether Cornell Woolrich can be considered a member of the US hard-boiled school

• Laura Vorachek on Vera Caspary's rewriting of Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret (1862) in Bedelia (1945)

• Patricia Gaitely on the supernatural in James Lee Burke

A particularly interesting article is Lisanne Sauerwald's analysis of Russian absurdist writer Daniil Kharms (1905–42), who was so enamored of Sherlock Holmes that he dressed like an English gentleman and encoded Holmes's Russian name, Kholms, into his pseudonym, Kharms. Sauerwald also notes that Conan Doyle's name appeared on 1920s lists of censored authors in Russia. Some of the passages included in this article have been translated into English for the first time.

For the table of contents with article abstracts, go here. For online access and subscription information, go here. For indices from Clues vols 1 to 28, go here.

Chicago claims first policewoman, 1890s.

"Chicago's beautiful
policewoman, who
handcuffs her prisoners
with a winning smile
and takes them to
lockup on a streetcar."
Washington Times
magazine 22 Apr 1906

The Washington Post reprints a Chicago Tribune piece on Marie Owens, who, if the evidence is substantiated, would be the first policewoman in the United States. Owens began her work in 1891; previous documentation dates women in the police force to 1913.

Chester Himes materials in Yale's Beinecke Library

Raymond St. Jacques,
left, and Godfrey
Cambridge in Cotton
Comes to Harlem

Yale University's Beinecke Library has various materials available online that pertain to Chester Himes:

• Ads for the films Cotton Comes to Harlem (dir. Ossie Davis, 1970) and its sequel, Come Back, Charleston Blue (dir. Mark Warren, 1972)

• Photos of Himes

The first female detectives return.

M. E. Braddon's
Eleanor's Victory (1863),
which features a female
amateur sleuth.

Under the title The First Female Detectives,  the pseudonymous Andrew Forrester Jr.'s The Female Detective (1864) and Revelations of a Lady Detective (aka Experiences of a Lady Detective, 1864, attrib. [controversially] to W. S. Hayward) have been reissued by Scholars' Facsimiles and Reprints. Eastern Illinois University's Dagni Bredesen, who wrote a Clues article about these works, introduces The First Female Detectives.

Forrester's female detective is one Miss Gladden. Regarding Revelations of a Lady Detective, Bredesen notes in her Clues article:

. . .Mrs. Paschal’s “revelations” comprise[] ten stories in which she deals with a variety of crimes and misdemeanors ranging from thefts of gold, jewels, mail, and identity to political conspiracy, murder, and fraud. In solving these mysteries, Mrs. Paschal curbs the excesses of a too-merry widow, an errant spouse, and wayward sons and brothers at the behest of either government officials or family members. Despite her conservative politics and policies, Mrs. Paschal is an exception to the rules she takes it on herself to uphold. (20)

These important works in the history of the mystery genre have not been available in their entirety since the 19th century.  (Hat tip to Judith Flanders)

This is only a test.

This podcast from LA Theatre Works partially deals with the personalities who recorded public service announcements for CONELRAD (the precursor to the Emergency Broadcast System), including Johnny Cash and Boris Karloff. More CONELRAD-related materials are here, including CONELRAD 100: Atomic Film.

About the image: Bert the Turtle from the civil defense film Duck and Cover (dir. Anthony Rizzo, 1951).

Happy 150th birthday, Jane Addams.

Nobel Peace Prize recipient Jane Addams was born today in Cedarville, Illinois, in 1860. A founder of Chicago's famed settlement house Hull-House, she was a major leader in the suffrage and peace movements, instrumental in the 1915 International Congress of Women that eventually resulted in the founding of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Delegates from the congress (including Addams) attempted to bring an early end to World War I, and the congress's platform (presented to President Wilson in August 1915) is unmistakably echoed in Wilson's later Fourteen Points. Various Chicago-area celebrations to mark Addams's birthday are planned for September 8.

About the image: Jane Addams, ca. 1907. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Would you believe ...?: The CIA Museum's Spy-Fi Archives.

The CIA Museum's online Spy-Fi Archives feature objects from spy films and TV programs, such as Napoleon Solo's business card from Man from U.N.C.L.E., Jim West's suit (with secret pockets) from Wild Wild West, Mrs. Peel's leather pants from The Avengers, and Maxwell Smart's famous shoe phone from Get Smart.


About the image: Don Adams's Agent 86 has no problem with a dial tone in Get Smart (1965).

Charles Darwin and H. G. Wells.

The National Library of Medicine's online exhibition on Charles Darwin discusses Darwin's influence on others, including
H. G. Wells and The Time Machine (1895).

Update: A TLS review of Michael Sherborne's new Wells bio appears here.

About the image: Rod Taylor in The Time Machine (dir. George Pal, 1960)

Meet Howard Spiegler, art lawyer.

Voice of America profiles attorney Howard Spiegler, who works to reunite stolen artworks with their rightful owners.
(Hat tip to ARCA blog)

Val McDermid on Radio New Zealand; ABC Book Show.

Val McDermid talks to Kim Hill on Radio New Zealand regarding her new book Trick of the Dark and the attractions of crime fiction for readers. She also was featured on Australia's radio program The Book Show during the Melbourne Writers Festival.

Farewell, Richard Conroy.

Yet another loss in the mystery community: Richard Timothy Conroy died on August 6 from heart disease at the age of 82, according to today's Washington Post obituary. Richard was known for his sly memoirs about his postings in the State Department, Our Man in Belize (1997) and Our Man in Vienna (2000); his three mysteries, The India Exhibition (1992), Mr. Smithson's Bones (1993), and Old Ways in the New World (1994); and the distinctive jewelry he designed for his wife, Washington Post reporter and diehard mystery fan Sarah Booth Conroy. The Conroys were unfailingly interesting, and their DC home, which I once had the privilege of visiting, was a showplace of antiques and Richard's artworks. Be sure to dip into Our Man in Vienna for Richard's fascinating encounter with Virginia Hill, infamous girlfriend of gangster Bugsy Siegel.

RIP, Dorothy Sucher.

Sad to read today's Washington Post obituary for psychotherapist Dorothy Sucher, author of Dead Men Don't Give Seminars (1988) and Dead Men Don't Marry (1989), who died on August 22 at age 77 from thyroid cancer. She was a founder of the Chesapeake chapter of Sisters in Crime and a welcome and warm presence in the early years of Malice Domestic.

New stolen books blog.

PhiloBiblos points out the new blog started by the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America on missing and stolen books.

Rosemary Herbert on the allure of mysteries during the summer.

On the OUP blog, Rosemary Herbert (editor of The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing, in which I wrote the entry on the hotel milieu; also coeditor of the recently released New Omnibus of Crime) discusses why mystery fiction is such an attraction during the summer. One reason, she says, is that "[r]eading a mystery can be a visceral experience."

Tom, Jerry, and Sherlock Holmes.

This week, Warner Home Video releases Tom and Jerry Meet Sherlock Holmes, in which the famed cat and mouse team up with the Great Detective to thwart a jewel thief. You can watch a clip from the episode here.

Happy centenary, Virginia Cowles.

FaberFinds celebrates today's centenary of Vermont-born war correspondent, author, and OBE recipient Virginia Cowles (1910– 83) with the reissue of her memoir Looking for Trouble (1941). In addition to a well-regarded biography of Churchill and other works, she wrote Love Goes to Press: A Comedy in Three Acts with her fellow Spanish Civil War correspondent Martha Gellhorn (the latter the subject of an HBO film in production, with Nicole Kidman and Clive Owen cast as Gellhorn and Hemingway respectively). Cowles's daughter is the former conservative parliamentary candidate Harriet Crawley.

BBC Archive: Daphne du Maurier, John le Carre, Len Deighton, et al.

The latest BBC Archive features footage with authors. A few highlights:

• Interview with Daphne du Maurier (1971).

• The lonely world of John le Carre (1966).

• Melvyn Bragg interviews Len Deighton (1977).

• Somerset Maugham discusses his selections of the 10 greatest novels (1954)

About the image: Portrait of Somerset Maugham. NYPL.

Arsenic in the soup.

Murder by Gaslight discusses James D. Livingston's Arsenic and Clam Chowder: Murder in Gilded Age New York, just published by State University of New York Press. The book looks at the case of Mary Alice Livingston Fleming, a relative of Declaration of Independence signer Philip Livingston, who was tried for murdering her wealthy mother, Evelina Bliss, in 1895.
About the image: Illustration of Mary Livingston Fleming, The Sun,  September 5, 1895, p. 3.

Buchan redux.

Happy to see that John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps, first published in 1915, hit the NPR Top 100 "Killer Thrillers" list at no. 51. Some books never go out of style, thankfully.

And Kate Macdonald's John Buchan: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction (edited by me) racked up another laudatory review, this time in ELT [English Literature in Transition, 1880–1920]:  "Macdonald has produced a first-class work of scholarship and a first-class popular guide to the fiction of a remarkable writer..."  But ever since the super-selective Jon L. Breen called it "a very impressive book,"  I've been feeling pretty chuffed.

Happy 90th birthday, 19th Amendment.

Today in 1920, after the mother of Tennessee legislator Harry Burn told him to "be a good boy and vote for suffrage," Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment to the Constitution and thus gave US women the right to vote.

To watch "Sufferin' till Suffrage" from Schoolhouse Rock, go here.

About the image: Suffrage leaders Carrie Chapman Catt, right, and Mary Garrett Hay, center, vote in their first election in New York.  Evening Public Ledger, Philadelphia, November 4, 1920.

Vote for your favorite mystery author.

The Library of Congress is asking readers to vote for their favorite authors who have attended the National Book Festival in its 10-year history.  Mystery author possibilities include Nevada Barr, Louis Bayard, Laura Lippman, Walter Mosley, and Scott Turow. Diana Gabaldon currently leads in the voting.

This year's festival is scheduled for September 25.

Geoffrey Household this week on BBC Radio 7.

This week on BBC Radio 7, an Englishman takes a potshot at an unnamed dictator (read Hitler) and goes on the run in Geoffrey Household's classic Rogue Male (1939, now back in print from NYRB Classics). Go here for the schedule or to listen; episodes can usually be heard for a week after broadcast.

About the image: Peter O'Toole in Rogue Male (dir. Clive Donner, 1976)

The Ladykillers: Coming up on BBC Radio 7.

An adaptation of the famous Alec Guinness comedy The Ladykillers, in which some eccentric characters masquerading as musicians plan a bank heist, is featured tomorrow on BBC Radio 7 and stars Edward Petherbridge. Go here for the schedule or to listen; episodes can usually be heard for a week after broadcast.

About the image: Alec Guinness in The Ladykillers (dir. Alexander Mackendrick, 1955)

New edition, Georges Simenon's Pedigree.

New York Review of Books Classics has just reissued Pedigree by Georges Simenon, a book based on his childhood in Liège, Belgium, that weighs in at more than 500 pages. Appreciations of Pedigree can be found here and here.

Product of the day: Police line shower curtain.

The police line shower curtain from Kikkerland.

Our Congress at work: Comic books and juvenile delinquency.

The Center for Legislative Archives (part of the National Archives) offers online some covers of comic books that apparently were part of the proceedings of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency in spring 1954.

About the image: Terrors of the Jungle, Sept. 1954, Star Publications.  Center for Legislative Archives, National Archives

Peripatetic remains.

On WSKG's Off the Page, Cornell University emeritus professor Michael Kammen discusses his book Digging Up the Dead: A History of Notable American Reburials, including the fairly well-known cases of John Paul Jones and Edgar Allan Poe, but also mentioning an attempt to steal Abraham Lincoln's remains.

Justice Crater: Disappeared today in 1930.

On August 6, 1930, New York Supreme Court justice Joseph Crater left a Times Square-area restaurant and was never seen again. On its blog, Overlook Press discusses Peter Quinn's new novel The Man Who Never Returned, which sets PI Fintan Dunne on the trail of Crater. This Web page features several stories by the New York Times regarding Crater's disappearance; the film The Judge Steps Out (1949; dir. Boris Ingster) and the CSI: New York episode "The Cost of Living" are both drawn from the case. Crater was declared dead in 1939.

About the image: Gary Sinise in "The Cost of Living," CSI: New York,  2008.

Anthony Horowitz on All Things Considered.

Foyle's War creator Anthony Horowitz talks to All Things Considered about his Alex Rider series and also writes about his recommended thriller: Goldfinger by Ian Fleming.

About the image: More Bloody Horowitz, by Anthony Horowitz, due out in September 2010 (note the portrait of the author in the background).

Radio New Zealand talks to the Kinkster.

Radio New Zealand chats with author, musician, and Texas gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman, who talks about some projects he is doing with Billy Bob Thornton, among other topics. Friedman is currently on tour in California.

On the trail of Sam Spade.

Staff members of the San Francisco Public Library go on the trail of Sam Spade in San Francisco.

P. D. James, John Meade Falkner this week on BBC Radio 7.

This week BBC Radio 7 airs John Meade Falkner's ghostly tale of possession, The Lost Stradivarius (1895), along with various P. D. James works (An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, A Taste for Death). Go here for the schedule or to listen; episodes can usually be heard for a week after broadcast