Mr Campion and Others By Margery Allingham
Maybe it’s a poor idea to start into a new mystery writer with a collection of short stories, but these were thin and uneven. 286 Margery Allingham is one of the true & proper greats of mystery fiction whom I had NEVER read until now. Fortunately this selection remedied the situation to some extent.
It contained the following stories:
1. The Widow
2. The Name on the Wrapper
3. The Hat Trick
4. The Question Mark
5. The Old Man in the Window
6. The White Elephant
7. The Frenchman's Gloves
8. The Longer View
9. Safe as Houses
10. The Definite Article
11. The Meaning of the Act
12. A Matter of Form
13. The Danger Point
This was a truly deceptive book.
While it was rather slimmish, the stories therein built worlds of their own.
The setting described in the stories might appear as typically 'cozy'. They seemed to belong to that variety of detective stories which is despised by hardboiled writers as artificial and 'artsy'. But the reality was sharply different. Instead of murders in highbrow locations and highbrow people mixing together, we come across a series of witty stories containing deep pools of darkness within. There are nasty people doing nasty things, apparently rich and powerful people breaking apart due to their simplicity and honesty, and police proceeding methodically towards the criminals once the picture has become clear.
There comes our deceptive hero. Campion is a witty and dry person who fits the role of middle-aged brother of the protagonist or his lawyer friend neatly. He doesn't indulge in heroics. We don't find women swooning over him. BUT he delivers the goods— with observation, logic, lots of earthly experience and (one must admit) luck.
And the writing! It was so perfectly British that one can almost hear the words being delivered in clipped, dry and yet humorous accent.
Yes, this is one book that a mystery-lover MUST read. Highly recommended. 286 Perfection. Ideal for a lazy Sunday afternoon's reading. If Dorothy L. Sayers and P.G. Wodehouse had a literary baby this would be it. 286 A frivolous collection of mostly early (1930s) Albert Campion stories that would have originally appeared in publications like The Strand Magazine. The stories are filled with authentic period flavor and are well written and great fun— a treat for Allingham enthusiasts and fans of golden age British detective stories— but they're not very substantive. However, unlike some of the other Allingham short story collections with Mr Campion's name in the title that actually have little to do with that gentleman, this one really is mostly Campion. 286 Enjoyable but I like her novels better than her short stories. 286
Wonderful and entertaining. 286 This is a collection of 13 short stories concerning the adventures of Mr. Albert Campion, gentleman detective, solving cases and resolving issues to the amazement and distraction of Scotland Yard’s own Stanislaus Oates.
It is thought that Albert Campion was originally a spoof on Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey, but by the time these stories were written, Campion had already gained a great level of respectability and real sophistication so that Lord Peter had the “noble” niche back as his own. Most of the action takes place in London, but the countryside is also brought in for backdrops, too.
Written in the 1930’s (published in 1938), the stories are somewhat dated in terms of satisfactory outcomes. Today we usually demand that justice be served by hard time or worse, but in several of the stories the “crook” is allowed freedom as long as scandal is avoided. Is this so English, or is Campion just a real gentleman in a polite society? Also, several of the stories revolve around non-violent, still deplorable episodes of crime, but not murder. The stories give us a minute sliver of a peek into the life of aristocratic British in the last days of peace before WW II. 286 Not a big fan of short stories but I love the Albert Campion mysteries so it all works out. Most were published in the 1940's in various magazines. Like all short stories, some are stronger than others but on the whole a solid collection of mysteries. 286 MR CAMPION AND OTHERS, Margery Allingham
1950, title used twice, first in 1939; the first eight stories in this collection are also in the 1939 collection but this edition also has five different stories. Nice, but not great. Three-and-one-half stars.
Note: The others in the title actually refer to the stories in the 1939 edition that were not in this edition (they were NOT Campion stories); this 1950 edition appears to have taken all the Campion stories from the 1939 edition, and added several more Campion stories, most from MR. CAMPION, CRIMINOLOGIST. The title is, therefore, misleading, at least in this edition, since this has *only* Campion stories.
In both the 1939 and 1950 editions: (date= when first published)
1937 04 The Widow
— neat little scam tale involving some brandy, A Reputable Firm, and a lonely hotel; rather sweet in spots and somewhat predictable, but smooth, really smooooth.... Reminded me a bit of a very early Wimsey tale.
1938 03 The Name on the Wrapper
— a classy crook, a big jewel robbery, and a Maiden In Distress
1938 10 (The Case of) The Hat Trick, apa (The Case of) The Magic Hat
— lovely con job starring an insufferable snob and a socially inept wealthy man
1938 01 (The Case of) The Question Mark apa Return of Mr. Campion. 1989
— yet another robbery, this time very old silver, an odd wannabe detective with persistence (and talent), and yet another lovely young lady of Campion's acquaintance, lots of fun.
1936 10 (The Case of) The Old Man in the Window
— a classic Is he dead, or isn't he? story, with beautiful characterizations and really good pacing; similar to one of Sayers' most famous novels, though.
1938 07 (The Case of) The Frenchman's Gloves
— starts out similar to a Holmes story (Man with the Twisted Lip), maneuvers itself almost into a Christie story (The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim), and then resolves into a neat little con job all Allingham's own.
1950 (The Case of) The Longer View apa The Crimson Letters in casebook 1947; this is an abridged version of The Crimson
Letters 1938, which was apa in 1939 edition of Others
— nifty tale about a kidnaping, with some nicely dark edges but, as (mostly) usual with Allingham, a nearly perfectly happy ending. Note: long version appears to only be in the 1939 edition or EQMM 10/1946
1936 08 (The Case of) The White Elephant
— Deluxe jewel thieves, a beautiful scam, a haughty Countess, and a Sweet Young Thing; not at all as predictable as it sounds - pacing is excellent and the working out of the plot is too
Only in the 1950 edition:
1940 01 Safe as Houses
— One of Campion's odd elderly relatives does an extremely odd thing, resulting in a lot of difficulty, and poor Albert has to get him and his redoubtable Mamma out of it (without telling Mamma...). Classic plot (Christie did a nice variation on it too) beautifully worked out, and although the humor is at first rather forced, the ending is entertaining.
1937 10 The Definite Article
— Campion vs. society blackmailer, who's targeted a Sweet Young Thing; longer and rather different version written 1937 but only this shorter variant published then and also in 1947 and 1950; original long version finally published 1987 as `The Black Tent' which was a far superior story, smoother and sweeter and vastly better plotted, available in The Return of Mr. Campion, 1989
1939 09 The Meaning of the Act
— an eminent Egyptologist exhibiting extremely unusual behavior, a worried daughter who asks Campion for help, a talkative pickpocket, an artist and a copper - a nice menage in a snappy story with a beautifully twisted ending. Oh, and the title is a joke, a rather funny joke, actually.
1940 05 A Matter of Form
— neat little scam tale set in London during early days of Battle of Britain, where obscure governmental rules and regs trip up a burglar; nicely smooth, but there is, unfortunately, yet another pair of lovers including a not-too-bright young man (this time in uniform) and another of the seemingly innumerable Pretty Young Things (sigggh) of Allingham's acquaintance.
1937 06 The Danger Point
— yet another Pretty Young Thing in distress, and another jewel robbery - sort of - amongst the rich'n'famous'n'peculiar, with Campion fixing things up behind the scenes. But this one is rather richer in texture and mood than some of them, with beautiful characterizations and nice twists.
286 A fun little set of mystery stories, mostly from the 1930s. They prompt some ruminations on the genre and period. First off, I think Margery Allingham was (at her best) an excellent writer, albeit not one whose solutions to mysteries always follow the rules. Second, I think Allingham and Dorothy Sayers generally wrote more memorable novels than short stories; their novels have more depth and complexity, generally succeeding as both genre fiction and lasting literature, while their short stories show much more evidence of having been written to please a magazine audience. The stories here, in fact, don't bear an enormous resemblance to Allingham's novels apart from the use of Albert Campion and Stanislaus Oates. Despite the use of these characters, the tales actually make me think of Wodehouse, in that Campion is as well-connected as Bertie Wooster and constantly helping out some foolish but pretty young woman and/or her lovesick young suitor. Campion, however, has no Jeeves in these stories--merely an anonymous man, which is jarring to anyone who knows the novels because in the novels Lugg is a major (if un-Jeeves-like) character. As in the novels, Campion is slender, over thirty, and wears horn-rimmed glasses, but here he is repeatedly described as having the kind of deceptively vacant look that Sayers's Peter Wimsey is so well known for. As the two writers evolved their detectives, Campion and Wimsey grew more individual, although they always retained some common features.
In addition to these thoughts about Campion and short story versus novel, I definitely had the feeling that Allingham was really playing to her readers' expectations of stereotype here--again not something the novels generally do. The young society women in the stories are invariably charming and good-looking but immature and eternally doing stupid things that either cause crimes to occur or to be solved. One can only take so much of that--and fortunately most of the women in the novels aren't like that--so fortunately the stories can be read one or two at a time and enjoyed as lightweight period pieces, literary meringues or baubles or whatnot. 286
An enthusiastic equestrian who lives for hunting foxes, pretty women, and other people's jewelry ... A resilient nonagenarian who keeps returning from the dead to scam unsuspecting insurance companies... A safecracker who prides himself on professional incompetence ... Now gentleman detective Albert Campion must match wits with a sinister assortment of lowlifes, crooks and cons in thirteen of the most baffling, bemusing, and breathtaking cases of his career. Mr Campion and Others