Reading the Detectives discussion
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Death of a Peer
Archive: Ngaio Marsh Buddy Reads
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Death of a Peer (aka Surfeit of Lampreys)
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My main problem with this book is that it is textually dated to 1940 - presumably the spring of that year. But there is no indication that there is a war on. No thought of shipping lost, of mines laid, or the risk from the Graf Spee or U-boats has troubled Roberta's voyage. Indeed, despite blackout regulations, her first sight of England is of the lights on the coast. Unless this is very early in January 1940, bacon, butter and sugar were rationed - presumably, as an immigrant, Roberta would have been issued with a ration book. There would be gas masks to be carried and air-raid shelters to point out the new arrival: although the Blitz had not yet started, the risk of bombing in London, as elsewhere, was real. Henry's total lack of enthusiasm for joining up is worrying. In a couple of months, Germany will invade France and the British Army will be pushed back to Dunkirk - and Henry is thinking about the possibility of looking for a job.
Did Ngaio Marsh make a mistake, and intend to set it a year earlier?
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Sandy wrote: "I certainly assumed it was pre-war from the character's conversations. I don't remember an actual date being mentioned and my copy has its first publication date as 1940."Gabriel has annotated one of Lord Charles' recent begging letters with 'Answered 11/12/39. Final refusal' "But Lord Charles' letters still came in and there were further final refusals". And Henry says that 1929 fashion is eleven years' out of date. But as I said, it only makes sense if she meant it to be set in 1939, not 1940.
Or has my 1961 copy (which says it was first published in 1941) been unaccountably mis-edited?
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My copy, US paperback, 2013, says copyright 1940, first UK publication 1941.
If it had been written more recently, I would have complained of shocking anachronisms and shoddy research ...
If it was first published in the US, that might explain why the Second World War didn't impinge on the editor's mind ...
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According to her biography, she was in Europe in 1937 and travelled, not only in England, but also around the Continent. She then went home and did not return to the UK until 1949. She worked for the New Zealand Red Cross during the war and I don't mean that she was not involved in the war, but she may not have felt the impact of rationing and not been completely aware of the situation in London - besides, she may have written it before war broke out?
My copy (1961) is quite clear - 10/5/38 and 11/12/39 - and there is the 'eleven years' since 1929. I suspect that by the time yours was printed the 'error' had been noted.We are used to future fiction being overtaken by real events - no flying bicycles yet - but if you were writing in early 1939 with war imminent, there seems little point in dating it early 1940 and pretending that the war hasn't happened. Unless there is some internal continuity in Alleyn's time line that makes Spring 1939 not a possible time for him to be in London.
New Zealand declared war against Germany on the same day as Britain did, and their news, like ours, would have reported attacks on civilian and HM shipping. I suspect that Roberta's ship, leaving as it must have done after declaration of war, would have been crowded with volunteers coming to join up. If it had sailed at all, with the risk to cruise ships and merchant vessels.
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I'm really loving the start of this book - so unusual, and the Lampreys are quite seductive. I also enjoyed Aunt Hilda's letter, with all its italics and exclamation marks, which reminded me of Miss Climpson in the Wimsey books!
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I have just looked at the start of Death and the Dancing Footman, the next in the series, and also first published in 1940. It's quite clearly set in early 1940 - it says so in the first sentence, and there is the closing of the blackout shutters, and soldiers/officers in uniform.I am sure the 'dating' of Surfeit of Lampreys must be a mistake, but it would be interesting to know where it crept in, and out again.
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Around page 224 , Henry says when the war comes, so they must have been thinking it was a probability .
Jill wrote: "Around page 224 , Henry says when the war comes, so they must have been thinking it was a probability ."And that makes any decision to post-date the book even less likely. Everyone knew in early 1939 that war would come, as it did in September. It is incredible that Ms Marsh would have decided (in, say, March 1939) to set the book a year in the future and pretend that war still hadn't started. And then not revise it before sending it to be published in 1940.
I can't find the part where it talks of the twins and Henry having something to do with the militia. This suggests that it may have been written after the Military Training Act (1939) which "applied to males aged 20 and 21 years old who were to be called up for six months full-time military training, and then transferred to the Reserve." Except that none of the Lampreys seems to have had the six months' training.
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After her mother's death Marsh returned to England in 1938-39 where she wrote Artists in Crime and Death in a White Tie. Her novels were being touted as a success in England, but with Europe teetering towards war, she had to return home (New Zealand) to look after her ailing widowed father. During the war, Marsh undertook voluntary aid work (60 hours per fortnight) at Christchurch’s Burwood Hospital, driving repatriated soldiers in a hospital bus all across Canterbury to their homes and was a respected Head Section-Leader of the Red Cross Transport Unit. All the while she continued with her writing of both plays and novels producing Death of a Peer [1940], Death and the Dancing Footman [1941], Colour Scheme [1943) and Died in the Wool [1944] bringing Alleyn 'down under' to investigate in the latter two titles. Her father passed away in 1948 and in 1949 Marsh returned to England.
New Zealand was involved in the war arena by early December 1939 with the departure of the First Echelon from Wellington to England. They already had the Navy involved and were to provide Airforce men to the RAF. Pretty good from a small country.Not a lot was written about the war during the war. My guess is 'loose lips etc.' could be the reason, but also the only news NZ was receiving was via newspapers that were usually several days behind. I do remember my mother say they went to the movie theatres each week to catch up with the news via Pathe Newsreels but they too were always at least a week or two behind. Maybe another reason is that most of the NZ adult males were serving and their status wasn't known for long stretches, so to write fictional stories involving war was perhaps considered not nice.
And yes, we did know about rationing. Right from the start of the war essentials were rationed, particularly food and clothing as NZ was commissioned to keep the English fed! Rationing continued for quite some time after the war ended - still looking after Mother England. When I contracted polio in 1951 I was given a ration book to allow me to get the red meat, butter, and cheese considered essential to build my bones and muscle in my recovery.
While NZ did not experience the bombing, it was effected by the war with a comparatively low number of men returned home who worked hard to provide for the families they had left and re-establish the country to what they left. There was poverty, but everyone had nothing and was largely a more cohesive, happier society than you see today - in my not so humble opinion. Then people were loved; things were used rather than the reverse you see today.
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I'm now halfway through the book and am pleasantly surprised to see that Nigel Bathgate is about to turn up - apologies to those who don't like him, but I find him fun.
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"A bailiff could, for practical reasons, delegate his responsibilities, in regard to some particular court instruction, to other individuals. As the population expanded, the need for the services of a bailiff mainly arose from financial disputes; consequently, these assistants came to be closely associated with debt-collection, in the public's minds. By Shakespeare's time, they had acquired the nickname bum-bailiffs, perhaps because they followed debtors very closely behind them."
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The edition I've just read was published in 1999 but had the same "error" with the dates as yours, Rosina - very odd that these dates were put in, as the whole book is clearly set pre-War and has a couple of mentions of "when the war comes." I shall take it that it should have been a year earlier.
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I found this book and posted on the Marsh 2018 challenge page this extract from it -For those interested, sharing an extract from an essay written by Ngaio Marsh retrieved from Burack, A.S. (1977). Writing suspense and mystery fiction. Boston: The Writer Inc.
"Birth of a Sleuth.
He was born with the rank of Detective-Inspector, C.I.D., on a very wet Saturday afternoon in a basement flat off Sloane Square, in London. The year was 1931.
All day, rain splashed up from the feet of passersby going to and fro, at eye-level, outside my water-streaked windows. It fanned out from under the tires of cars, cascaded down the steps to my door and flooded the area. "Remorseless" was the word for it and its sound was, beyond all expression, dreary. In view of what was about to take place, the setting was, in fact, almost too good to be true.
I read a detective story borrowed from a dim little lending-library in a stationer's shop across the way. Either a Christie or a Sayers, I think it was. By four o'clock, when the afternoon was already darkening, I had finished it, and still the rain came down. I remember that I made up the London coal-fire of those days and looked down at it, idly wondering if I had it in me to write something in the genre. That was the season, in England, when the Murder Game was popular at weekend parties."...
..."I thought that my detective would be a professional policeman but, in some ways, atypical; an attractive, civilized man with whom it would be pleasant to talk but much less pleasant to fall out.
He began to solidify."
I've also discovered another book with a chapter about Marsh that contains some interesting biographical information in it, and there's quite a bit about the Surfeit of Lampreys/Death of a Peer main characters. Could be interesting to read and see how much of the 'real people' appear in the characters of the book.The book itself could be really interesting too. Women of Mystery: The Lives and Works of Notable Women Crime Novelists
Has anyone read it?
I found the chapter about Marsh accessible through Google books, but it isn't the full chapter.
https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=k...
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For those interested, sharing an extract from an essay written by Ngaio Marsh retrieved from Burack, A.S. (1977..."
Thanks, Lesley - this essay is also included as the introduction to the omnibus edition of the first 3 Alleyn books published by Harper in the UK, and I found it very interesting!
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Susan wrote: "I had never heard of a bum bailiff, either, Judy, but assumed it meant someone that, literally, put their bum on a chair and staked a claim, which was what it actually seemed to be."The bum bailiff confused me. Did they actually sit in the servants quarters for days until they got what they required?
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Ahh, that makes more sense now - thank you!
Watching the latest version of Vanity Fair, I noticed that Rawdon Crawley, rather than being confined to a debtor's prison, was taken to a Sponging House in the hope that that would persuade him to raise the money needed to pay the debt - and he was able to write letters to family and friends. The bailiff in possession works on much the same principle - to squeeze money out of the debtor before more devastating legal action needs to be taken.
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Hmm, is anyone else struggling to find the Lampreys as charmingly eccentric as we're supposed to? I haven't got to the murder yet (but it's about to happen, I'd guess) but I'm finding myself very resistant to the family... the sense of entitlement, the cutesy 'look how bad I am with money, ha ha' attitude, the refusal to stop spending money they don't have... More positively, Marsh's writing has improved immeasurably since the last book of hers I read: Artists in Crime, I think - it flows better, is richer. Looking forward now to meeting Alleyn and Fox again.
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I think this is intentional, that we are supposed to see how glamorous and charming the Lampreys seem, but also how irresponsible and cavalier with other people's money they are underneath. Robin feels increasingly uneasy about them.
Despite the comparison with the Micawbers which is made near the end, I think in some ways they are like a less positive Dickens character, Harold Skimpole in Bleak House, who similarly insists that he really can't be bothered with money, while sponging off others!
Ah, that's interesting about Robin's unease - so far in my reading she's still dazzled and worshipping. Yes, Skimpole's a great character and far more subtly rendered than the Micawbers.
I would have searched through my Boy's Book on Detection to find the right legal term, and arrested both twins for impeding the investigation of a murder, and had them carted off to spend a few nights in the cells.
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I agree. Alleyn showed more tolerance than is reasonable.
Sandy wrote: "I agree. Alleyn showed more tolerance than is reasonable"If he were a low-class policeman, we'd be accusing him of being overawed by the aristocracy. But I am sure he wouldn't let the Joe Bloggses (with whom he surely must sometimes have to deal) get away with faffing around like the Lampreys. So it's obviously the Old Boys' Club Tie working. Most unprofessional.
I do agree with all of that, but I suppose it happens in a lot of GA books. Detectives in today's world depicted in books are much more believable.
I've just finished this book and I think I've enjoyed the most out of all we've read so far. It almost felt that Marsh was having fun writing this one, and not having to work at it.I'm going to read the chapter from Women of Mystery where she writes in depth about the Rhodes family which is supposed to be the family the Lampreys are based on. It will be interesting to compare what she tells about the Rhodes and how they match up to the Lampreys.
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That sounds interesting, Lesley - I'm guessing you mean this book? There seem to be a few with the same title, but the others look to be anthologies.
Women of Mystery: The Lives and Works of Notable Women Crime Novelists
This sounds like yet another good book to read in future! :)
Reading the Detectives
Books mentioned in this topic
Women of Mystery: The Lives and Works of Notable Women Crime Novelists (other topics)Women of Mystery: The Lives and Works of Notable Women Crime Novelists (other topics)
Women of Mystery: The Lives and Works of Notable Women Crime Novelists (other topics)
Death and the Dancing Footman (other topics)
Murder with Malice (other topics)
More...
Ngaio Marsh’s most popular novel begins when a young New Zealander’s first contact with the English gentry is the body of Lord Wutherford – with a meat skewer through the eye…
The Lampreys had plenty of charm – but no cash. They all knew they were peculiar – and rather gloried in it. The double and triple charades, for instance, with which they would entertain their guests – like rich but awful Uncle Gabriel, who was always such a bore. The Lampreys thought if they jollied him up he would bail them out – yet again.
Instead, Uncle Gabriel met a violent end. And Chief Inspector Alleyn had to work our which of them killed him…
Please refrain from posting spoilers in this thread - thank you.