Toggle navigation
LazyLibrarian
eBooks
Series
AudioBooks
Magazines
Manage
History
Logs
Config
Help
Searching, please wait...
Edit Author
Author Name:
Born:
Died:
Added by:
AKA:
GoodReads:
OpenLibrary:
HardCover:
Author Description
Anthony Gilbert was the pen name of
Lucy Malleson
an English crime writer. She also wrote non-genre fiction as
Anne Meredith
, under which name she also published one crime novel. She also wrote an autobiography under the Meredith name,
Three-a-Penny
(1940).
Her parents wanted her to be a schoolteacher but she was determined to become a writer. Her first mystery novel followed a visit to the theatre when she saw
The Cat and the Canary
then,
Tragedy at Freyne,
featuring Scott Egerton who later appeared in 10 novels, was published in 1927.
She adopted the pseudonym Anthony Gilbert to publish detective novels which achieved great success and made her a name in British detective literature, although many of her readers had always believed that they were reading a male author. She went on to publish 69 crime novels, 51 of which featured her best known character, Arthur Crook. She also wrote more than 25 radio plays, which were broadcast in Great Britain and overseas.
Crook is a vulgar London lawyer totally (and deliberately) unlike the aristocratic detectives who dominated the mystery field when Gilbert introduced him, such as Lord Peter Wimsey.
Instead of dispassionately analyzing a case, he usually enters it after seemingly damning evidence has built up against his client, then conducts a no-holds-barred investigation of doubtful ethicality to clear him or her.
The first Crook novel,
Murder by Experts,
was published in 1936 and was immediately popular. The last Crook novel,
A Nice Little Killing,
was published in 1974.
Her thriller
The Woman in Red
(1941) was broadcast in the United States by CBS and made into a film in 1945 under the title
My Name is Julia Ross.
She never married, and evidence of her feminism is elegantly expressed in much of her work.
Current Image:
Filenames must be full path to file or a URL, or put none to remove author image
Filename and URL need to end with .jpg/.jpeg/.png/.webp
000002.jpg
000004.jpg
000005.jpg
000003.jpg
000001.jpg
Change image to:
No change
File/URL
000002.jpg
000004.jpg
000005.jpg
000003.jpg
000001.jpg
Lock settings