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Miss Pym Disposes

by Josephine Tey, Robert Barnard (Introduction)

3.99 of 5 stars 3.99 · rating details · 2,373 ratings · 137 reviews

A guest lecturer at a college for women, psychologist Miss Pym steps in to prevent a young student from cheating during final exams, an act of compassion that precipitates a fatal "accident"--or was it murder?

Paperback, 238 pages

Published August 18th 1998 by Touchstone (first published 1946)

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Dec 14, 2012 Kim rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: buddy-reads-with-jemidar, crime-fiction, kindle

First published in 1946, this novel isn't a conventional murder mystery and doesn't feature Tey's detective Inspector Alan Grant. Rather, the Miss Pym of the title serves the function of detective, without actually being one - either amateur or professional - at all. Rather, she's a high school teacher turned best-selling author of a pop psychology book who visits an old friend who is now the principal of a women's physical training college. Miss Pym becomes interested in the lives and personali...more
First published in 1946, this novel isn't a conventional murder mystery and doesn't feature Tey's detective Inspector Alan Grant. Rather, the Miss Pym of the title serves the function of detective, without actually being one - either amateur or professional - at all. Rather, she's a high school teacher turned best-selling author of a pop psychology book who visits an old friend who is now the principal of a women's physical training college. Miss Pym becomes interested in the lives and personalities of the college students and their teachers and ultimately becomes embroiled in what on the surface appears to be an accident, but which which may well prove to be a crime.

This particular incident does not take place until about three quarters of the way through the novel. Tey builds up to it slowly, through a series of psychological portraits of the characters as they interact with each other and with Miss Pym. Tey's prose is witty and sharp and and her character development is excellent.* In addition, the narrative contains touches which will mean something to readers who know about Tey and her interests. For example, the description of Shakespeare's Richard III as "[a] criminal libel on a fine man, a blatant piece of political propaganda, and an extremely silly play" reflects Tey's views about Richard III, later set out in her 1951 novel The Daughter of Time. There are also references to actors and acting, something with which Tey, who also wrote plays using the name Gordon Daviot, was very familiar.

In reading this novel I learned a lot about women's physical training colleges in England in the early part of the 20th century. It's interesting to learn about something I hadn't known existed before, but after reading this book it's arguable that I now know too much about the subject. Tey attended a physical training college and taught physical training at schools in England and Scotland before becoming a writer, so I suppose she wrote about what she knew.

A novel which features apparently criminal behaviour set in a women's college and having as its central characters a number of students and teachers invites comparison with Dorothy L Sayers'Gaudy Night. Frankly, this novel comes off very much second best in that comparison: it lacks the depth and passion which Sayers brought to her work. That said, characterising the novel as Gaudy Night-lite does Tey an injustice. It's an engaging read, although quite slow-paced, with an interesting central protagonist and an unexpected twist at the end. (Well, I thought that there probably would be a twist, but I didn't anticipate that particular one.)

I read the book with my friend Jemidar, which is always a delight. It gets 3 stars for the plot and an extra half star for the excellence of the writing.

*That said, I think it could be argued that in developing the psychological portraits of her characters, Tey relied much too heavily on physiognomy as a reliable indicator of character. This is also very much a factor in The Daughter of Time.(less)

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Jan 20, 2013 Faith Spinks rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: recommended-to-me, fiction

According to the cover of the book "Josephine Tey is one of the best known and best loved of all crime writers." She is "the classic mystery writer." Yet I had never heard of her or her books before this recommendation, and by halfway through the book I was still waiting for a crime to happen and the biggest mystery to me was why I was still reading.

I think your impression of any book you read has a lot to do with your expectations ahead of ever turning that first page. I had been recommended th...more

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May 23, 2013 Ruby Scarlett rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is excellent and utterly different from anything I've read before. The psychological study is minute, the humour sharp and quotable, the characters detached yet devatastingly human. I don't know what to call this insofar as this is as much a character study of various female students in the forties as it is a mystery novel that advocates applied psychology and body language reading to solve crimes. It is a good whodunnit (though I'd guessed the final twist, it was still quite smart) but it'...more

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Mar 27, 2013 Dorothy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: female-protagonist, mystery

While Josephine Tey’s most well-known detective, Inspector Alan Grant, features in six of her eight mystery novels, Miss Pym Disposes is not one of them.

This book features the eponymous Miss Lucy Pym, a quiet, non-assertive, intelligent woman who has written a best-selling psychology book (shades of Chicken Soup for the Soul). She is invited to a girls’ school by its headmistress, a former schoolmate, for as a guest lecturer.

Thinking this was another of Tey’s Inspector Grant book, I kept waitin...more While Josephine Tey’s most well-known detective, Inspector Alan Grant, features in six of her eight mystery novels, Miss Pym Disposes is not one of them.

This book features the eponymous Miss Lucy Pym, a quiet, non-assertive, intelligent woman who has written a best-selling psychology book (shades of Chicken Soup for the Soul). She is invited to a girls’ school by its headmistress, a former schoolmate, for as a guest lecturer.

Thinking this was another of Tey’s Inspector Grant book, I kept waiting for the requisite murder and his arrival. I was three-quarters through the book when I surfaced and checked the internet, since I was enjoying the novel that much. Once confirming what I now suspected (that this is not an Inspector Grant novel at all), I dove back in and read to the finish in one sitting.

This book is unlike Tey’s previous two mysteries, not only in the absence of Inspector Grant but also in that the “murder event” does not occur until nearly the end of the book. Instead of being the driving force of the book and central reason the characters come together, in Miss Pym Disposes it exists to cause an existential discussion on the meanings of justice and the law. Though shocking, it becomes a life-changing event for very few of the characters.

Mostly this is an observational book from the point of view of Miss Pym as she adjusts to her new status as Celebrity and reevaluates her relationship with people based on the feedback she gets from the various students and teachers at the College. She self-identifies as “a bit of a rabbit”, yet the Senior students to whom she lectures take to her immediately. Miss Pym, through her “psychological lens”, gives us an outsider view of the close-knit community of the College. Presumably, we are expected to use this intimate knowledge of the participants to come to a decision regarding the causes that lead to the nasty accident.

As with Tey’s other books, there are several colloquial words and references that date the book, reflecting the specific time and culture at a private English school. And as with her other books, Miss Pym Disposes is no less enjoyable for that. At a minimum, I got a few great Scrabble words out of it!

Very good.(less)

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Feb 25, 2013 Mommalibrarian rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery

The main mystery in this book is what the characters will reveal about themselves. The setting is 'a college of physical culture' where young ladies are awakened by a bell at 'half-past five'. They are scheduled with two classes before their breakfast at 8 and do not get around to dinner and then freedom until 8 in the evening. It is the week before finals and the big demonstration for the parents. Miss Pym is an ex-high-school French teacher who has made enough money from the publication of a b...more The main mystery in this book is what the characters will reveal about themselves. The setting is 'a college of physical culture' where young ladies are awakened by a bell at 'half-past five'. They are scheduled with two classes before their breakfast at 8 and do not get around to dinner and then freedom until 8 in the evening. It is the week before finals and the big demonstration for the parents. Miss Pym is an ex-high-school French teacher who has made enough money from the publication of a book of popular psychology to retire. She is at the school at the request of an old-classmate to give a lecture. She stays and quietly considers the psychology of the students and staff. From the beginning she is warned, "it is their last term, this. And so everything is e-norrrmousy exaggerated. Everyone is just the least little bit insane. ... If a student is frightened by nature, then she is a thousand times more frightened this term. If she is ambitious, then her ambition becomes a passion. ... It is not a normal life they lead. You cannot expect them to be normal."

As an American of the early 21st century I was immediately struck by the slang and Britishisms but also the turns of phrase and thought of the time - mid 1940s. The students speculate on whether Miss Pym is a 'zipp-fastener' (zippers must have been a new thing) Miss Pym "wondered if 'looking zipp-fasterner' was a compliment. Being a safety-pin person couldn't be thought exactly admirable..." 'She had just decide to be uncivilised and uncultured and 'go in her mook'". She felt it "strange how one already used Klondyke terms about College." One of the students is knicknamed the 'Nut Tart'. "She pondered the name. 'Nut' was Brazil, [homeland of the person] perhaps. It was also the modern slang for 'dippy' or 'daft', she believed." The student have 'raves' which seem to be 'crushes' but there is probably a more modern term still for the phenomena.

Unfortunately the language fun does not continue and it is a very quiet read. Whether you will feel rewarded for your effort will depend on your expectations. (less)

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Jan 16, 2013 Suzanne rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: mysteries

Josephine Tey is not as well known today as others from the Golden Age of mysteries, which is a shame.

This is not one of her best works, but none of her works is less than "good." I won't repeat the plot; others have done that. I would not compare this work with "Gaudy Night." Other than the fact that it takes place in a school, there is no comparison, and even the school setting is not the same. What it does compare with, very strongly, is Agatha Christie's "Cat Among the Pigeons," which was p...more

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Jan 14, 2012 Yune rated it 3 of 5 stars

I wouldn't recommend this as an introduction to Tey's works; it's only my second, and I came away disquieted although I could see all the strengths that shone through in the other one that I read (The Franchise Affair). That said, it's sort of marvelously invasive into your thoughts after you've turned the last page and set the book down. I've concluded that the author isn't a mystery writer, as she's sometimes called, but rather someone deeply interested in human reactions to criminal situation...more I wouldn't recommend this as an introduction to Tey's works; it's only my second, and I came away disquieted although I could see all the strengths that shone through in the other one that I read (The Franchise Affair). That said, it's sort of marvelously invasive into your thoughts after you've turned the last page and set the book down. I've concluded that the author isn't a mystery writer, as she's sometimes called, but rather someone deeply interested in human reactions to criminal situations.

That's heavily on display in this book, where the murder doesn't even occur until the last third of the book. The first couple hundred pages are devoted to Miss Pym's settling into Leys, a school of physical training for girls. Yes, this sounded boring to me too, and I was rather overwhelmed in the beginning by the barrage of chatter and slang from the students, as well as the minutiae of their coursework. But I grew to find these things endearing; each girl has a distinct personality, and I love how they hand out nicknames and abbreviations to everything and grow frantic about their final exams -- it just rang authentic. But dramatic and suspenseful it is not.

Once the setting is established, the plot was predictable, but Tey examines the fallout instead of the events themselves. The title, which was originally a turn-off as being strange and fussy to my ear, comes from a line of dialogue: "Do the obvious right thing, Miss Pym, and let God dispose." It's when Miss Pym starts uncovering secrets and must decide whether to follow this advice or take things into her own hands that my brain really perked up.

Miss Pym herself is a former French teacher who wrote a book on psychologist that became a surprise bestseller. Her position at the school is unique; she's not quite staff, so the students like and trust her as a friend, but she also holds the confidence of the instructors. I'm not sure why there's emphasis in other reviews about how she's not a standard investigator type. She's constantly observing other people in a detailed manner, although not at all clinically. The difference, I suppose, is in her position in relation to the enforcement of justice.

Interesting stuff, but it's awfully hard to judge whether other people would find it worthwhile.

Warning: there are abhorrently casual racist bits scattered in this book.(less)

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Jan 01, 2012 trishtrash rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: crime-fiction-and-mystery

Invited by an old school friend to give a lecture on psychology at a girl’s athletic college, Miss Pym - one of the most approachable fictional mystery-solvers that I’ve ever read – discovers a sinister undercurrent to the driven but seemingly normal surface life of the girls and staff. If Miss Pym is hardly a ‘detective’ in the usual sense, the crime itself is also almost beside the point of the novel; for much of the book, we see hardly any hint of anything amiss at Ley’s, and are content to s...more Invited by an old school friend to give a lecture on psychology at a girl’s athletic college, Miss Pym - one of the most approachable fictional mystery-solvers that I’ve ever read – discovers a sinister undercurrent to the driven but seemingly normal surface life of the girls and staff. If Miss Pym is hardly a ‘detective’ in the usual sense, the crime itself is also almost beside the point of the novel; for much of the book, we see hardly any hint of anything amiss at Ley’s, and are content to simply wallow in the amiable guest’s pleasant reception by the girls, and to join her in her character assessment of them. In the end, the character of Miss Pym, as well as the girls, is tested.

The charm of the setting and characters would have made this story an instant favourite, but I also deeply enjoyed the prolonged, relaxed lead-up to the crime; we are immersed in the world of the girls’ studies and career concerns so that when the curiously unlikable and duplicitous Rouse is given the opportunity of a prestigious teaching post over the more natural choice of the brilliant Innes, the impact is properly felt by the reader as much as by their confused and outraged peers.

It’s a lovely work of crime fiction despite the unchallenging plot, with a sort of frothy girl-school good nature and underlying human nature that make an interesting mix, and Tey’s writing style is delightful. Its isn’t close to the brilliance of the gripping The Daughter of Time, but it has so much charm of its own that I enjoyed it thoroughly nonetheless; it would have been an easy five-star rating, if not for the casual racisms thrown in here and there. I have, in the past, rated books with five stars despite this bias against even ‘era-appropriate’ turns of phrase, but in all honesty, they spoiled my enjoyment of this book a measurable, if small, amount, and I’m choosing (both arbitrarily and pointlessly) to reflect it, because if my enjoyment wasn’t perfect, I can see no reason to rate it as if it was.(less)

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Jun 04, 2011 Bill rated it 4 of 5 stars

The first book I read by Josephine Tey, The Daughter of Time, was many, many years ago. Only recently did I find out about this book and read it.
The story is set at Leys Physical Training College in an English village and the author attended a similar school in Birmingham, U.K. Miss Pym is a retired teacher who wrote a best seller on psychology and became a celebrity. The Head Mistress of the college is a childhood friend of Miss Pym's and invites her to visit for the graduation festivities at t...more

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May 23, 2010 Surreysmum rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 1984, mystery

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Mar 07, 2010 Judy rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book would have never hit my radar, but my Goodreads friend, Jane, read it and enjoyed it. That was enough for me. Good call, Jane. I ejnoy books set in the first half of the twentieth century in England and this one is no exception. Miss Pym inherits just enough money so that she can leave the teaching profession and follow her other interests. After reading numerous books on psychology, which she find silly, she writes one herself that, surprisingly enough, becomes a best-seller. On the b...more

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Mar 17, 2013 missbowers rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013

This novel should not really be called a "mystery"--it is, I suppose, in a way, but ultimately, it is a comedy of manners with a mystery to tie it all together.

I like quiet books--books that are about concerned with somewhat boring subjects; books that aren't all action and climaxes and blood and gore. I think that when an author can take an ordinary subject, a quiet topic, an almost sleepy matter, and make it not-ordinary, not-quiet, not-sleepy: therein lies the true writer's talent. Life isn't...more

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Jan 09, 2012 Ann rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I first read this novel some years ago and enjoyed it then and even more on this reread. Josephine Tey's writing is so elegant. It is as much a novel of character as a detective story with an ending that examines how a crime may affect the lives of some of the people involved.

The basic storyline is that Miss Pym, a former French teacher, has become something of a celebrity since writing a best selling book about psychology. This leads to an invitation from her old school friend Henrietta, now he...more

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Oct 17, 2011 Kribu rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery

This is one of those cases again when I can't quite decide how many stars to give... so it's above 4, but not quite 5, mostly because I only seem to give 5 stars these days to the rare books I get fannishly obsessed about.

I'd been hearing about Josephine Tey for a while now, but this is the first book by her that I've read, and I found it quite excellent. Not so much as a mystery, perhaps, but I rather think this wasn't the main purpose of this particular book - it was so much more a study of ch...more

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May 27, 2011 Emily rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: mysteries

What a fantastic little piece of English writing. This has the feel of a cozy period piece mystery and is very character-driven rather than action-based: Miss Pym, well-known in Psychology, travels to College to help out an old friend by giving a lecture. The school-girls are thrilled with her arrival, and she with them; and so she stays. (More than half the story is Pym's developing relationship with the College, to the point where I wondered if I was in fact reading a mystery, as nothing myste...more

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Oct 08, 2012 Jill Holmes rated it 5 of 5 stars

Despite what they might like to think, brilliant writers seldom emerge fully formed from Adam's rib, pearl oysters, or other idealized sources. Josephine Tey is, indeed, a brilliant author and creator of some of the world's best-loved mysteries. But she began life as Elizabeth MacKintosh and became a Physical Training Instructor before surrendering practicalities to become a writer. She mines this background in "Miss Pym Disposes", when Miss Pym, herself the author of a surprise best-seller on p...more

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Mar 20, 2011 Ellie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites, fiction, mystery, british

For those who have missed my other reviews of the amazing Josephine Tey I will once again sing the praises of this outstanding writer-not just mystery writer but writer writer.

is set in a somewhat different milieu than Tey's usual country estate/small English town. It takes place in the world of academia and begins as an ordinary misdeed that blooms into murder.

Tey is a master at taking simple plot and handling them with brilliant ease that transforms them into outstanding, absorbing mystery...more

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Aug 29, 2009 Elizabeth rated it 4 of 5 stars

Miss Pym, an "expert" on psychology (she read a lot of psych books, thought they were silly, and wrote a best-seller saying why), finds herself trying to untangle the psychological currents in a training school in physical education/physical therapy (the young women study gymnastics, anatomy, physical therapy, dance, and related subjects as training for jobs in education and medical care). As with most of Josephine Tey's books, this one is more about social setting and moral uncertainty than a m...more

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Jan 15, 2013 Mitch rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery

This is the second mystery by Josephine Tey I have read, and it quite lives up to the high standard of the first.

I would recommend it to mystery lovers. Clearly, Josephine is not into convoluted plots ("She always had tea at exactly 4:23, so the kettle must have been whistling then- she COULDN'T have heard the shot!") Instead, her focus is more on the characters of her characters.

These are painted well and are all very British.

In both books I was interested to find out which direction Josephine...more

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Feb 22, 2009 Ann Amadori rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book,first published in the mid 1940's was hard to get into. For a while I did not think I would make it. It was interesting to learn about the culture of a British physical educational college for girls but I did not understand all the Britishisms. That undoubtedly took away from the story. About half way through it got more interesting, although the murder did not take place until three quarters of the way through. Miss Pym certainly took things into her own hands after that. I will try o...more

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Feb 23, 2011 Miriam rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, mystery

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Sep 13, 2011 Lisa (Harmonybites) rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Everyone

Shelves: crime, favorites, fiction, mystery, novels

Josephine Tey is one of my favorite authors, and though this novel isn't as well-known as her Daughter of Time or Brat Farrar I still consider it a standout and one of my favorite mystery novels.

Like Dorothy Sayer's mystery Gaudy Night, this novel is set at a women's college--but not the rarefied Oxford of Sayer's Harriet Vane. This is set at Leys, a British college of "Physical Training" with subjects like gymnastics, ballet, kinesiology, anatomy, diet and hygiene. Lucy Pym is the bestselling a...more Josephine Tey is one of my favorite authors, and though this novel isn't as well-known as her Daughter of Time or Brat Farrar I still consider it a standout and one of my favorite mystery novels.

Like Dorothy Sayer's mystery Gaudy Night, this novel is set at a women's college--but not the rarefied Oxford of Sayer's Harriet Vane. This is set at Leys, a British college of "Physical Training" with subjects like gymnastics, ballet, kinesiology, anatomy, diet and hygiene. Lucy Pym is the bestselling author of a pop psychology book and a visiting lecturer and friend of the headmistress. She remarks to a student from Brazil, Teresa, known as "The Nut Tart" that she sees the students as normal and healthy. But Teresa, as an outsider, has a different view, and that's the first hint we get there might be more to this bunch. (And incidentally--one example of Tey's deft storytelling is that she uses idiom and syntax to indicate Teresa isn't a native English speaker instead of using the usual hard-to-comprehend phonetic spellings and elisions that make a foreign speaker come across as an uneducated moron.)

One review complains the novel is "plodding," and Tey certainly takes her time in this one. Nothing much happens through three-quarters of the book. This isn't a suspenseful novel, but more a psychological study. Most mysteries start with a murder, then add one or two by the end, with Clues(tm) along the way. Here it's more that the subtle clues of character are what builds up to the tragedy. Action packed this is not.

This is one of the most memorable mysteries I've ever read, to a great extent because of the twist at the end. And yes, in a puzzle piece Agatha Christie sense, it's a good twist, but the impact of it for me was so much more than that of any Agatha Christie I've read, because of the consequences and because of how in its way it's so subversive of the whole tidy cozy mystery genre and amateur sleuthing. The title takes on a rather significant meaning at the end.(less)

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Oct 01, 2012 Rachel Crooks rated it 4 of 5 stars

Miss Pym Disposes was a comforting mixture of the elements of other fun mystery books of the time. Like Harriet Vane in Gaudy night, Miss Pym also visits a girls shool and discovers that all is not as it seems. Like Miss Marple, Miss Pym also discovers more about people's characters because of how they remind her of other people she has known. Like a Barbara Pym novel, this book was full of witty asides that made every sentence delicious.

Usually I am bothered when authors copy each other - such...more

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Jun 03, 2012 Anneth Strinnholm rated it 3 of 5 stars

Det här är en förtjusande bok där den gruvliga händelse som vår lilla virriga huvudperson ämnar bringa klarhet i liksom hamnar i skymundan för det mustiga persongalleriet. Ingen större spänning alltså, men fängslande på sitt sätt.

På många sätt tycker jag att upplägget påminner om en miss Marple-bok, men denna antihjältinna, som med sina relativt nyvunna insikter i psykologi menar sig kunna lösa det brott som sker på den skola som hon blir inbjuden att föreläsa vid, är dessvärre inte särskilt sl...more

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Aug 17, 2007 Amy rated it 4 of 5 stars

This made me want to read more Josephine Tey. What witty, interesting writing. Wonderful, quirky characters are keenly developed.

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Jan 24, 2013 Sarah rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery

Lucy Pym, having recently written a well-regarded book on psychology, is invited by her old school chum to lecture at Leys Physical Training College. Lucy finds herself drawn to the vibrant young women, swept up in the drama of their mad struggles with final exams and Leys' curious method of career assignment. The book is 75% over before the promised fatal accident occurs, so it might be more satisfying to approach it as a novel that happens to have a corpse, rather than a mystery. The main inte...more

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Feb 17, 2011 Leslie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, vintage-crime-and-pulp

Witty, sharp, and very well-written. Tey is less interested in writing a mystery novel than in using the conventions of the mystery novel to examine time, place, and character. And to throw out a few questions. How much do we really know about other people? Is it possible to read character on the face and in the body? And where are we to find first causes? The attempt to assign responsibility and to understand the causation of human behaviour is fruitless; in this story, Miss Pym is able to to t...more

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Mar 08, 2013 Lewy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: English culture fans

This is not a mystery in the usual sense. It is more a fly-on-the-wall view of Miss Lucy Pym's visit to an English Physical Training College for women. I read it because I had enjoyed her book The Daughter of Time, which talks at length about Richard III of England and his unearned reputation as a villain. This book is interesting in what it tells me about a different culture than the one I live in. There is a small event at the end, which makes up the mystery component. I recommend this for peo...more

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Jun 03, 2012 Bonnie G rated it 5 of 5 stars

I took this book to England with me and it was the perfect choice! The setting is a girls' school in a British small village, much like the ones I experienced. Miss Pym is a charming character that I used to follow faithfully, then forgot about. I like Tey's stories because they hold a mystery, but you don't realize what the mystery is until you have met and known all the characters. I think this book's main event didn't occur until 2/3rds into it. Then Miss Pym defies the logical denouement for...more

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Apr 21, 2013 Jeff Miller rated it 4 of 5 stars

Really 4.5 stars.

In some ways it reminded me of Dorothy Sayers "Gaudy Night" in the setting. Although quite a different book where it is not towards the latter part where the mystery unfolds and becomes more of a mystery novel. With a writer of this talent it is amazing that a mystery book could be like this and you just hung on the story of the various observations through the eyes of Miss Pym. Quite amusing and parts that had me laugh out loud while also dealing with serious moral matters.

The...more

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About Josephine Tey

Josephine Tey was a pseudonym of Elizabeth Mackintosh. Josephine was her mother's first name and Tey the surname of an English Grandmother. As Josephine Tey, she wrote six mystery novels featuring Scotland Yard's Inspector Alan Grant.

The first of these, 'The Man in the Queue' (1929) was published under the pseudonym of Gordon Daviot, whose name also appears on the title page of another of her 1929...more Josephine Tey was a pseudonym of Elizabeth Mackintosh. Josephine was her mother's first name and Tey the surname of an English Grandmother. As Josephine Tey, she wrote six mystery novels featuring Scotland Yard's Inspector Alan Grant.

The first of these, 'The Man in the Queue' (1929) was published under the pseudonym of Gordon Daviot, whose name also appears on the title page of another of her 1929 novels, 'Kit An Unvarnished History'. She also used the Daviot by-line for a biography of the 17th century cavalry leader John Graham, which was entitled 'Claverhouse' (1937).

Mackintosh also wrote plays (both one act and full length), some of which were produced during her lifetime, under the pseudonym Gordon Daviot. The district of Daviot, near her home of Inverness in Scotland, was a location her family had vacationed. The name Gordon does not appear in either her family or her history.

Elizabeth Mackintosh came of age during World War I, attending Anstey Physical Training College in Birmingham, England during the years 1915-1918. Upon graduation, she became a physical training instructor for eight years. In 1926, her mother died and she returned home to Inverness to care for her invalid father. Busy with household duties, she turned to writing as a diversion, and was successful in creating a second career.

Alfred Hitchcock filmed one of her novels, 'A Shilling for Candles' (1936) as 'Young and Innocent' in 1937 and two other of her novels have been made into films, 'The Franchise Affair' (1948), filmed in 1950, and 'Brat Farrar' (1949), filmed as 'Paranoiac' in 1963. In addition a number of her works have been dramatised for radio.

Her novel 'The Daughter of Time' (1951) was voted the greatest mystery novel of all time by the Crime Writers' Association in 1990.

Miss Mackintosh never married, and died at the age of 55, in London. A shy woman, she is reported to have been somewhat of a mystery even to her intimate friends. While her death seems to have been a surprise, there is some indication she may have known she was fatally ill for some time prior to her passing.(less)

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