Sorta OT - background on Josephine Tey
Sorta OT - background on Josephine Tey
2012-10-21 18:04:09
Hi, All -
I finished *The Daughter of Time* late last night. I didn't cry at the end,
which is on the low-key side, but it left me with a sense of poignant
sadness. I felt that, in masterful fashion, using the conventions of the
detective genre, Tey dealt with most of the significant elements of the
historical case against Richard. The impression I was left with was a strong
sense of Richard's innate decency, kindness, and intelligence, that he was a
good man whom the historians - who Grant/Tey rails against - have treated
shabbily, in contrast to conniving Henry VII, whom Grant/Tey even describes
in one place as "shabby." Tey's protagonist Alan Grant points out Richard's
constant loyalty toward members of his family and his charity toward
occasional conspirators, like Jane Shore. Further, Tey, through Grant, notes
that by virtue of his descent and the fact that Richard had a legal claim to
the throne under "Titulus Regius," it would have not only been unlikely that
Richard would have "offed" the boys but, even worse, it would have been
stupid - something Richard never was. I hope to start another thread in
which to discuss Tey's points in more detail, but in the meantime I thought
you all might enjoy a transcription of the "Introduction" by Robert Barnard
and "About the Author" written by Dana Adkins, the editor of the series,
which give more background info on Tey than I can recall seeing before. It
is taken from The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey, ImPress (an imprint of
The Reader's Digest Association, Inc.), copyrights 1951 by Elizabeth
Mackintosh, renewed 1979 by R.S. Latham:
"Introduction," by Robert Barnard
Mystery readers who have never encountered Josephine Tey are in for a
delicious treat. Tey belonged to the Golden Age of British crime writing
(roughly speaking, 1920-1950), and her place in the pantheon of mystery
writers is unassailable.
Josephine Tey (1896 or '97 - 1952) is a writer who lives by her works alone.
Nobody seems to know anything much about her life, in spite of her
successful career in the theatre, and nobody seems to care. The steady and
sustained sale of her novels in the years since her death is due to the
books themselves, which have proved to have an enduring appeal. And I would
hazard the guess that her readers' attitude towards her is different from
their attitude towards other classic crime writers: they regard her with
love. They give to their favourite Tey novel what they once gave to their
favourite books of childhood, to The Wind in the Willows, Little Women, or
whatever: unconditional enthusiasm.
This strong bond between novelist and reader is based on trust - trust in
someone who is not only a first-rate storyteller but one who is not content
with a formula. Tey, in her best books, seeks to tell different sorts of
story, in different ways. This marks her off from the usual purveyors of
puzzle-plots, brilliant though they often are. Indeed, in her more
straightforward detective stories, Josephine Tey often reveals a sort of
impatience with the rules and conventions of the whodunit. In A Shilling for
Candles, for example, two of the three plot strands are unraveled with
information that is either not given readers at the time the detective gets
it, or only revealed just before the unmasking of the criminal. She was, in
other words, not interested enough in that kind of game and preferred to
play other, more varied sports.
Three of her novels occupy that hinterland often uneasy, but not in her
hands - between the crime novel and the "novel proper." They all have crime
at their heart, but they are as far as possible from the "body in the
library" formula. Impersonation has been at the heart of many detective
stories, but it has seldom carried the emotional charge of Brat Farrar; and
our sympathies are never in a mere puzzle so skillfully and so surprisingly
manipulated. The Daughter of Time is an almost unrepeatable success (a
historical mystery reanimated and investigated by present-day inquirers),
and it has aroused a whole new interest in what previously seemed a dusty
and rather sordid period of English history - the reign of King Richard III
and the murder of the Princes in the Tower. The Franchise Affair also has a
basis in fact (an eighteenth-century case in which a maid charged her
employers with abduction and mistreatment), but in her hands it becomes a
sort of parable of the middle class at bay.
Coming at the tail end of the Golden Age of crime fiction, Tey does not
escape some of the less attractive attitudes of her contemporaries:
anti-Semitism, contempt for the working class, a deep uneasiness about any
enthusiasm (for example Scottish nationalism) that, to her, smacks of
crankiness. If Agatha Christie's "Anthony Astor" in Three Act Tragedy is
indeed a hit at Tey, then Christie targets Tey's weaknesses squarely when
she talks about "her spiritual home - a boardinghouse in Bournemouth," with
the implication of dreary respectability and conventionality.
But that is to seize on the inessentials and to ignore the essence:
Josephine Tey's brilliant storytelling; her varied, loving characterization;
above all, her control of reader sympathies. These are evident in all her
novels, whether whodunits or more unconventional structures. If Ngaio Marsh
or Christie had died as young as Tey, we would have a good idea of what they
could have gone on writing. We can guess that Tey would have written several
more whodunits, but what she would have written is beyond our guesswork.
That in itself is her best tribute.
ROBERT BARNARD is the author of more than thirty crime novels. A seven-time
Edgar nominee and winner of the Anthony, Agatha, Macavity, and Nero Wolfe
awards, he lives in Leeds, England.
"About the Author"
Josephine Tey not only wrote mysteries but was something of a mystery
herself. To begin with, her real name was not Josephine Tey. She was born
Elizabeth Mackintosh in Inverness Scotland, on June 25, 1896. Her father,
Colin, was a greengrocer from a small Gaelic fishing community. He didn't
learn English until he went to school, and then, as a second language. Her
mother, Josephine, was a teacher. Elizabeth was the first of their three
daughters.
As a schoolgirl, Bessie MacK, as she was called, enjoyed gymnastics,
performing summersaults and other acrobatics to the delight of her friends.
During World War I she studied physical education at the Anstey Physical
Training College in Birmingham. She remained in England, teaching physical
education until 1923, when her mother fell ill with cancer. Being the only
unmarried daughter, she returned home to take up nursing duties. After her
mother's death she stayed on to look after her father until his death in
1950.
Elizabeth Mackintosh wrote short stories and poems during the 1920's. Her
first mystery novel was written for a mystery-fiction competition sponsored
by an English publisher. Titled The Man in the Queue (1929), it introduced
Inspector Alan Grant and was written under the pseudonym Gordon Daviot.
Where "Gordon" came from, no one knows, but "Daviot" was a small Scottish
village where the Mackintosh family vacationed. Not surprisingly, the book
won the competition. It was later awarded the American Dutton Mystery Prize
as well.
Mackintosh didn't begin to write mystery novels as Josephine Tey (a
combination of her mother's first name and her grandmother's maiden name)
until A Shilling for Candles, published in 1936. But her first major success
came as a playwright. In 1932 her historical play Richard of Bordeaux -
directed by and starring Sir John Gielgud - was a box-office hit. The actor
and the shy writer became instant friends. He called her "the most
delightful author I have ever worked with in the theatre." He also noted how
she always slipped away before reporters could interview her: "The idea of
having to talk about herself to strangers, terrifies her."
After A Shilling for Candles she did not publish another novel for ten
years. Why Tey stopped writing fiction during this period is unknown.
Gielgud wrote that she was depressed and speculated that she had suffered a
personal bereavement. But after World War II her novels came fast and
furiously: Miss Pym Disposes (1946), The Franchise Affair (1948), Brat
Farrar (1949), To Love and Be Wise (1950), The Daughter of Time (1951), and
The Singing Sands (1952).
The Daughter of Time (the title is from the Latin proverb "Truth is the
daughter of time") is Tey's most famous book. It was an immediate critical
success and sparked lively controversy with its thesis that the unfairly
maligned Richard III was not responsible for the deaths of the young York
"Princes in the Tower." Although Tey's solution to the mystery is not
accepted by most contemporary historians, her observation that historical
research and detective work call for the same rigorous exercise of human
reason is certainly a valid one.
Tey was an outdoorswoman who loved fishing and horse racing and, in spite of
her Scottish heritage, England. She rather disparagingly regarded her
mysteries as "yearly knitting."
In late 1950 she found out that she had an incurable illness. True to her
character, she never revealed what it was. She died on February 13, 1952,
during a trip to London. She was fifty-five and went to her grave with her
secrets still largely intact.
Dana Adkins
Editor
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanne L. Tournier
Email - jltournier60@...
or jltournier@...
"With God, all things are possible."
- Jesus of Nazareth
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I finished *The Daughter of Time* late last night. I didn't cry at the end,
which is on the low-key side, but it left me with a sense of poignant
sadness. I felt that, in masterful fashion, using the conventions of the
detective genre, Tey dealt with most of the significant elements of the
historical case against Richard. The impression I was left with was a strong
sense of Richard's innate decency, kindness, and intelligence, that he was a
good man whom the historians - who Grant/Tey rails against - have treated
shabbily, in contrast to conniving Henry VII, whom Grant/Tey even describes
in one place as "shabby." Tey's protagonist Alan Grant points out Richard's
constant loyalty toward members of his family and his charity toward
occasional conspirators, like Jane Shore. Further, Tey, through Grant, notes
that by virtue of his descent and the fact that Richard had a legal claim to
the throne under "Titulus Regius," it would have not only been unlikely that
Richard would have "offed" the boys but, even worse, it would have been
stupid - something Richard never was. I hope to start another thread in
which to discuss Tey's points in more detail, but in the meantime I thought
you all might enjoy a transcription of the "Introduction" by Robert Barnard
and "About the Author" written by Dana Adkins, the editor of the series,
which give more background info on Tey than I can recall seeing before. It
is taken from The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey, ImPress (an imprint of
The Reader's Digest Association, Inc.), copyrights 1951 by Elizabeth
Mackintosh, renewed 1979 by R.S. Latham:
"Introduction," by Robert Barnard
Mystery readers who have never encountered Josephine Tey are in for a
delicious treat. Tey belonged to the Golden Age of British crime writing
(roughly speaking, 1920-1950), and her place in the pantheon of mystery
writers is unassailable.
Josephine Tey (1896 or '97 - 1952) is a writer who lives by her works alone.
Nobody seems to know anything much about her life, in spite of her
successful career in the theatre, and nobody seems to care. The steady and
sustained sale of her novels in the years since her death is due to the
books themselves, which have proved to have an enduring appeal. And I would
hazard the guess that her readers' attitude towards her is different from
their attitude towards other classic crime writers: they regard her with
love. They give to their favourite Tey novel what they once gave to their
favourite books of childhood, to The Wind in the Willows, Little Women, or
whatever: unconditional enthusiasm.
This strong bond between novelist and reader is based on trust - trust in
someone who is not only a first-rate storyteller but one who is not content
with a formula. Tey, in her best books, seeks to tell different sorts of
story, in different ways. This marks her off from the usual purveyors of
puzzle-plots, brilliant though they often are. Indeed, in her more
straightforward detective stories, Josephine Tey often reveals a sort of
impatience with the rules and conventions of the whodunit. In A Shilling for
Candles, for example, two of the three plot strands are unraveled with
information that is either not given readers at the time the detective gets
it, or only revealed just before the unmasking of the criminal. She was, in
other words, not interested enough in that kind of game and preferred to
play other, more varied sports.
Three of her novels occupy that hinterland often uneasy, but not in her
hands - between the crime novel and the "novel proper." They all have crime
at their heart, but they are as far as possible from the "body in the
library" formula. Impersonation has been at the heart of many detective
stories, but it has seldom carried the emotional charge of Brat Farrar; and
our sympathies are never in a mere puzzle so skillfully and so surprisingly
manipulated. The Daughter of Time is an almost unrepeatable success (a
historical mystery reanimated and investigated by present-day inquirers),
and it has aroused a whole new interest in what previously seemed a dusty
and rather sordid period of English history - the reign of King Richard III
and the murder of the Princes in the Tower. The Franchise Affair also has a
basis in fact (an eighteenth-century case in which a maid charged her
employers with abduction and mistreatment), but in her hands it becomes a
sort of parable of the middle class at bay.
Coming at the tail end of the Golden Age of crime fiction, Tey does not
escape some of the less attractive attitudes of her contemporaries:
anti-Semitism, contempt for the working class, a deep uneasiness about any
enthusiasm (for example Scottish nationalism) that, to her, smacks of
crankiness. If Agatha Christie's "Anthony Astor" in Three Act Tragedy is
indeed a hit at Tey, then Christie targets Tey's weaknesses squarely when
she talks about "her spiritual home - a boardinghouse in Bournemouth," with
the implication of dreary respectability and conventionality.
But that is to seize on the inessentials and to ignore the essence:
Josephine Tey's brilliant storytelling; her varied, loving characterization;
above all, her control of reader sympathies. These are evident in all her
novels, whether whodunits or more unconventional structures. If Ngaio Marsh
or Christie had died as young as Tey, we would have a good idea of what they
could have gone on writing. We can guess that Tey would have written several
more whodunits, but what she would have written is beyond our guesswork.
That in itself is her best tribute.
ROBERT BARNARD is the author of more than thirty crime novels. A seven-time
Edgar nominee and winner of the Anthony, Agatha, Macavity, and Nero Wolfe
awards, he lives in Leeds, England.
"About the Author"
Josephine Tey not only wrote mysteries but was something of a mystery
herself. To begin with, her real name was not Josephine Tey. She was born
Elizabeth Mackintosh in Inverness Scotland, on June 25, 1896. Her father,
Colin, was a greengrocer from a small Gaelic fishing community. He didn't
learn English until he went to school, and then, as a second language. Her
mother, Josephine, was a teacher. Elizabeth was the first of their three
daughters.
As a schoolgirl, Bessie MacK, as she was called, enjoyed gymnastics,
performing summersaults and other acrobatics to the delight of her friends.
During World War I she studied physical education at the Anstey Physical
Training College in Birmingham. She remained in England, teaching physical
education until 1923, when her mother fell ill with cancer. Being the only
unmarried daughter, she returned home to take up nursing duties. After her
mother's death she stayed on to look after her father until his death in
1950.
Elizabeth Mackintosh wrote short stories and poems during the 1920's. Her
first mystery novel was written for a mystery-fiction competition sponsored
by an English publisher. Titled The Man in the Queue (1929), it introduced
Inspector Alan Grant and was written under the pseudonym Gordon Daviot.
Where "Gordon" came from, no one knows, but "Daviot" was a small Scottish
village where the Mackintosh family vacationed. Not surprisingly, the book
won the competition. It was later awarded the American Dutton Mystery Prize
as well.
Mackintosh didn't begin to write mystery novels as Josephine Tey (a
combination of her mother's first name and her grandmother's maiden name)
until A Shilling for Candles, published in 1936. But her first major success
came as a playwright. In 1932 her historical play Richard of Bordeaux -
directed by and starring Sir John Gielgud - was a box-office hit. The actor
and the shy writer became instant friends. He called her "the most
delightful author I have ever worked with in the theatre." He also noted how
she always slipped away before reporters could interview her: "The idea of
having to talk about herself to strangers, terrifies her."
After A Shilling for Candles she did not publish another novel for ten
years. Why Tey stopped writing fiction during this period is unknown.
Gielgud wrote that she was depressed and speculated that she had suffered a
personal bereavement. But after World War II her novels came fast and
furiously: Miss Pym Disposes (1946), The Franchise Affair (1948), Brat
Farrar (1949), To Love and Be Wise (1950), The Daughter of Time (1951), and
The Singing Sands (1952).
The Daughter of Time (the title is from the Latin proverb "Truth is the
daughter of time") is Tey's most famous book. It was an immediate critical
success and sparked lively controversy with its thesis that the unfairly
maligned Richard III was not responsible for the deaths of the young York
"Princes in the Tower." Although Tey's solution to the mystery is not
accepted by most contemporary historians, her observation that historical
research and detective work call for the same rigorous exercise of human
reason is certainly a valid one.
Tey was an outdoorswoman who loved fishing and horse racing and, in spite of
her Scottish heritage, England. She rather disparagingly regarded her
mysteries as "yearly knitting."
In late 1950 she found out that she had an incurable illness. True to her
character, she never revealed what it was. She died on February 13, 1952,
during a trip to London. She was fifty-five and went to her grave with her
secrets still largely intact.
Dana Adkins
Editor
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanne L. Tournier
Email - jltournier60@...
or jltournier@...
"With God, all things are possible."
- Jesus of Nazareth
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Re: Sorta OT - background on Josephine Tey
2012-10-21 18:15:59
The play about Richard the Second which Josephine Tey wrote (under the name of Gordon Daviot) is worth a read:
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks09/0900341h.html
She was clearly a very talented writer! And one with very proper views about both King Richards.
Brian W
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks09/0900341h.html
She was clearly a very talented writer! And one with very proper views about both King Richards.
Brian W
Re: Sorta OT - background on Josephine Tey
2012-10-21 18:25:26
Ooh, thanks for that!
The Franchise Affair was republished not that long ago and was made in a reasonably good film starring Michael Denison and Dulcie Grey - that was my introduction to Miss Tey.
________________________________
From: Brian <wainwright.brian@...>
To:
Sent: Sunday, 21 October 2012, 18:15
Subject: Re: Sorta OT - background on Josephine Tey
The play about Richard the Second which Josephine Tey wrote (under the name of Gordon Daviot) is worth a read:
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks09/0900341h.html
She was clearly a very talented writer! And one with very proper views about both King Richards.
Brian W
The Franchise Affair was republished not that long ago and was made in a reasonably good film starring Michael Denison and Dulcie Grey - that was my introduction to Miss Tey.
________________________________
From: Brian <wainwright.brian@...>
To:
Sent: Sunday, 21 October 2012, 18:15
Subject: Re: Sorta OT - background on Josephine Tey
The play about Richard the Second which Josephine Tey wrote (under the name of Gordon Daviot) is worth a read:
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks09/0900341h.html
She was clearly a very talented writer! And one with very proper views about both King Richards.
Brian W
Richard III on Amazon
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