R Austin Freeman

Dr. Richard Austin Freeman MRCS LSA was a British author who lived from April 11, 1862, to September 28, 1943. He wrote mystery stories mostly about Dr. Thorndyke, a medico-legal forensic investigator. He came up with the idea for the "inverted detective story," which is a type of crime fiction in which the crime itself is described first, along with the criminal's name. The story then follows the detective as he tries to solve the mystery. Some people have said that this idea is Freeman's most...See more

Dr. Richard Austin Freeman MRCS LSA was a British author who lived from April 11, 1862, to September 28, 1943. He wrote mystery stories mostly about Dr. Thorndyke, a medico-legal forensic investigator. He came up with the idea for the "inverted detective story," which is a type of crime fiction in which the crime itself is described first, along with the criminal's name. The story then follows the detective as he tries to solve the mystery. Some people have said that this idea is Freeman's most important addition to detective fiction. 30 Some of Freeman's early work as a colonial medic was used in his books. A lot of the stories about Dr. Thorndyke are based on real, but sometimes hard to understand, science facts from fields like toxicology, tropical medicine, and metalworking. Austin Freeman was the fifth child of tailor Richard Freeman and Ann Maria Dunn. He was the youngest. He began studying medicine at the Middlesex Hospital when he was 18 years old and became an MRCS and LSA in 1886. Freeman worked as a house doctor at the hospital for a year after he graduated. He married Annie Elizabeth Edwards, the girl he had loved since childhood, in London on April 15, 1887. They had two sons together. See less