The Old Man in the Corner
This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (March 2023) |
Author | Baroness Orczy |
---|---|
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Published | 1908 Hodder & Stoughton |
Followed by | The Case of Miss Elliott |
The Old Man in the Corner is an unnamed armchair detective who appears in a series of short stories written by Baroness Orczy. He examines and solves crimes while sitting in the corner of a genteel London tea-room in conversation with a female journalist. He was one of the first of this character-type created in the wake of the huge popularity of the Sherlock Holmes stories. The character's moniker is used as the title of the collection of the earliest stories featuring the character.
Publishing history
The character first appeared in
Scenario
The Old Man concentrates mostly upon sensationalistic newspaper accounts, with the occasional courtroom visit, and relates all this while tying complicated knots in a piece of string. The plots themselves are typical of
Stories
The stories included in this volume are:
- The Fenchurch Street Mystery
- The Robbery in Phillimore Terrace
- The York Mystery
- The Mysterious Death on the Underground Railway
- The Liverpool Mystery
- The Edinburgh Mystery
- The Theft at the English Provident Bank
- The Dublin Mystery
- An Unparalleled Outrage (The Brighton Mystery)
- The Regent's Park Murder
- The De Genneville Peerage (The Birmingham Mystery)
- The Mysterious Death in Percy Street
Film and other media
The Old Man in the Corner was featured in a series of twelve British two-reel silent films, made by Stoll Pictures in 1924, written and directed by Hugh Croise and starring Rolf Leslie as The Old Man and Renee Wakefield as journalist Mary Hatley (Polly Burton in the book). These featured mysteries from each of the three collections:
- The Kensington Mystery (The Tragedy in Dartmoor Terrace)
- The Affair at the Novelty Theatre
- The Tragedy at Barnsdale Manor
- The York Mystery
- The Brighton Mystery
- The Northern Mystery (?)
- The Regent's Park Mystery
- The Mystery of Dogstooth Cliff
- The Mystery of Brudenell Court
- The Mystery of the Khaki Tunic
- The Tremarne Case
- The Hocussing of Cigarette
In the early 1970s
The radio series The Teahouse Detective was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 starring Bernard Hepton as "The Man in the Corner" and Suzanne Burdon as Polly Burton. The stories in the series were adapted for radio by Michael Butt and included:
1998
- The Metropolitan Line Murder (The Mysterious Death on the Underground Railway)
- The York Murder
- The Body in the Barge (The Fenchurch Street Mystery)
- The De Genneville Peerage
2000
- The Dublin Mystery
- The Edinburgh Mystery
- The Brighton Mystery
- The London Mystery (The Regent's Park Murder)
Bibliography
- ISBN 0-19-219223-X
- Bleiler, E. F. (ed.) (1980). The Old Man in the Corner, Twelve Mysteries. Dover, ISBN 0-486-23972-1
- Russell, Allan K. (ed.) (1978). Rivals of Sherlock Holmes. Castle Books, ISBN 0-89009-207-9
External links
- The Old Man in the Corner at Standard Ebooks
- The Old Man in the Corner at Project Gutenberg
- The Old Man in the Corner public domain audiobook at LibriVox