David was hiking across Dartmoor, pleased to have escaped the oppressively juvenile and sometimes perilous behaviour of his fellow undergraduates. As far as he could tell, he was the only human being for miles--at least, that is what he presumed when he found a dead man on top of the tor. Born in Edinburgh in 1906, the son of the city's Director of Education, John Innes Mackintosh Stewart wrote a highly successful series of mystery stories under the pseudonym Michael Innes. Innes was educated at Oriel College, Oxford, ...
Read More
David was hiking across Dartmoor, pleased to have escaped the oppressively juvenile and sometimes perilous behaviour of his fellow undergraduates. As far as he could tell, he was the only human being for miles--at least, that is what he presumed when he found a dead man on top of the tor. Born in Edinburgh in 1906, the son of the city's Director of Education, John Innes Mackintosh Stewart wrote a highly successful series of mystery stories under the pseudonym Michael Innes. Innes was educated at Oriel College, Oxford, where he was presented with the Matthew Arnold Memorial Prize and named a Bishop Frazer's scholar. After graduation he went to Vienna, to study Freudian psychoanalysis for a year and following his first book, an edition of Florio's translation of Montaigne, was offered a lectureship at the University of Leeds. In 1932 he married Margaret Hardwick, a doctor, and they subsequently had five children including Angus, also a novelist. The year 1936 saw Innes as Professor of English at the University of Adelaide, during which tenure he wrote his first mystery story, Death at the President's Lodging . With his second, Hamlet Revenge , Innes firmly established his reputation as a highly entertaining and cultivated writer. After the end of World War II, Innes returned to the UK and spent two years at Queen's University, Belfast where in 1949 he wrote the Journeying Boy , a novel notable for the richly comedic use of an Irish setting. He then settled down as a Reader in English Literature at Christ Church, Oxford, from which he retired in 1973. His most famous character is 'John Appleby', who inspired a penchant for donnish detective fiction that lasts to this day. Innes's other well-known character is 'Honeybath', the painter and rather reluctant detective, who first appeared in 1975 in The Mysterious Commission . The last novel, Appleby and the Ospreys , was published in 1986, some eight years before his death in 1994.
Read Less
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
First edition (hardback). 12mo (19cm by 13cm), 221pp. Original red cloth, dustwrapper. Foxing to the top edge of the text block, else the book is in very good condition; the dustwrapper is in good minus condition (chipped and torn with slight loss). The dustwrapper has now been put in a mylar cover to protect it.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Good in Good jacket. No date. shelf wear on both book and jacket. ex-library copy with stamps, some scarring and a library pocket. title page is missing. contents are clear, legible and intact. fairly good copy. [SK]
While this is not the greatest Michael Innes ever, it's by no means the worst, and contains many clever details and likeable characters. The scenerio and setting are especially great, and it has, for me at least, the advantage of having a memorable title connected to the plot (so I can find it again), but not too bizarre an ending, so that I can read and enjoy it fairly often, without the solution suddenly popping up in my mind and spoiling it. I don't recommend this for those who've never read Michael Innes--try the Secret Vanguard, From London Far, or Operation Pax, which are some of the best--but if you already know and like John Appleby, or even Charles Honeybath, you should enjoy this greatly.
