Margery Allingham

🔍 Are you fascinated by detectives who aren't quite what they appear to be? Join me for a deep dive into Margery Allingham's world, where her famous sleuth Albert Campion hides his clever mind behind a decidedly foolish facade.

📖 Allingham was born into a family of storytellers and was a child prodigy who earned her first writing fee at age eight, then went on to become one of the "Queens of Crime."

💫  Join me and discover why Margery Allingham stands alongside Christie and Sayers in the mystery hall of fame. 

Where to start reading Margery Allingham? 

The Crime at Black Dudley is a lighthearted mix of mystery and thriller.

If you want something a little darker, The Tiger in the Smoke (1952) focuses more on the psychology of a serial killer.

For more classic whodunits, check out my books in print, audio, or ebook: 

High Society Lady Detective series 

1920s Lady Traveler in Egypt series

Sources: 

Margery Allingham Society: https://margeryallingham.org.uk

Wikipedia - Margery Allingham: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margery_Allingham

Encyclopedia Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Margery-Allingham

🕵️‍♀️ 📦 Cozy Books Corner Subscription Box (affiliate code), a book box curated for cozy mystery readers.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Welcome to Mystery Books Podcast. I'm Mystery Author Sarah Rosette. This is Season 6, Episode 4, and it's all about Marjorie Allenham. In this episode, we're returning to the heavy hitters of the Golden Age of Mystery. Marjorie Allingham is considered one of the queens of crime, along with Agatha Christie, Dorothy Elsayers, and Nan O. Marsh. So let me give you a little background about Marjorie Allingham. She was born in 1904 in London. Her father was an editor and a pulp fiction writer, and her mother contributed stories to women's magazines, including a series about a lady detective. And of course, that makes me curious, and I think I will have to hunt that down and see what that's about. I will let you know if I find it. In 1920, Marjorie Allingham studied drama and speech training at Regent Street Polytechnic to help her overcome a stammer. And she started writing very young, and I can see why, with a background in such a literary family, she was writing at an early age. That's not surprising. She earned her first money from writing at the age of eight with a short story in her aunt's magazine. And her first detective novel was published when she was in her mid-twenties. Another interesting thing about Allingham is that her husband, Philip Young McCarter, was an artist and designer, and he collaborated with her and designed some of her book jackets. So that's sort of unusual. I mean, not many authors, especially at this time, had much say in the covers of their books. And um, even today, traditionally published authors do not get hardly any say in what their covers look like. So I think that's very interesting that he designed her covers and he also designed covers for many mystery authors of that time, as well as general fiction authors. And I've seen some of his covers and they're very distinctive, very interesting. Her first book, or her first mystery, was The Crime at Black Dudley, and it was published in 1929, and it introduced uh the detective Albert Campion. Now, in this book, Crime at Black Dudley, he is a minor character, but he was so interesting the publisher wanted more books about Albert. There's not a there's not a lot of detail, not a lot of background about him in the book, but he plays a fool, seemingly, but he's actually very smart. So sort of a scarlet pimpernell type character. And eventually Allingham continued this series and she had a regular cast of characters for the Campion books that included Campion's sidekick Lug, who was a former cat burglar, as well as his love interest, Lady Amanda Fritton. In all, there are 21 Campion books. After her death, her husband, Philip Youngman Carter, finished the book she was working on when she died called Cargo of Eagles, and it was published in 1968, and I think that was about two years after she died. And then Carter went on to write two more campion books, and when he passed away in 1969, he also left an unfinished campion manuscript. He had started it. It sounded like he had a couple of chapters, lots of characters, but no synopsis and no whodunit. And that manuscript went to Allingham's sister Joyce, and then when she died, the manuscript was left to the Marjorie Allingham Society. And eventually they worked with the author Mike Ripley to finish the novel, and it became Mr. Campion's Farewell. There is also a modern, some more modern books, more recent versions of these books. Ripley has continued to write uh series with Campion in it. So there's actually some books that have come out more recently than the 60s and um yeah, the late 60s. So there's some more modern books, but they still have Campion in them. Okay, so back to Marjorie Allingham's books. Her books all have the theme of adventure, mystery, espionage, and quite a bit of humor. And she really blends the classic mystery tropes with her unique style, which developed over time. Her early novels are really breezy. They're like a combination of a Who-Done It and a comedy of manners. But then later her books are a bit darker and more psychological sometimes. As far as influences, uh Dorothy L. Sayers was a big influence on Allingham's early work, particularly Albert Campion. Initially, he was conceived as a parody of Lord Peter Whimsey, but over time Campion develops into his own distinctive character. Now I thought this quote was very interesting. I found this on the Marjorie Allingham Society website. This is the way Marjorie Allingham thought of her plots in her books. She says, quote, they have a killing, a mystery, an inquiry, and a conclusion with an element of satisfaction in it. Close quote. I thought that was interesting because you do have you have the death, you have the mystery of who done it, you've got the inquiry, the the search for the truth, and then you have conclusion, and I love that she included with an element of satisfaction in it. So you want the mystery to be satisfying and you want the resolution to be satisfying. And she found those were the four elements that made a good mystery. And I would have to say, have to agree with her there. In all, she wrote 26 novels and over 60 short stories and various articles and essays. And she also wrote under a pen name, Maxwell March. I haven't read these books, but looking at the descriptions, it seems as if they are have an element of mystery in them and a pretty heavy dose of romance. And it looks like they came out in the 30s, the early 30s. So if you want to start reading Marjorie Allingham, what book should you start with? I would recommend The Crime at Black Deadly. It's a lighthearted mix of mystery and thriller and lots of fun. But if you want something a little bit darker, go with Tiger in the Smoke that focuses on the psychology of a serial killer. Alright, I hope this podcast has given you some new possibilities for your to-be-read pile. If you've enjoyed it, I hope you'll tell a fellow mystery reader. And if you can't get enough of the 1920s Who Dunnits, check out my High Society Lady Detective series in ebook, audio, or print at SarahRosettebooks.com. Happy sleuthing, and I'll see you next time.