Sir Henry Merrivale

Sir Henry Merrivale is a fictional detective created by Carter Dickson, a well-known pseudonym of the American mystery writer John Dickson Carr (November 30, 1906–February 27, 1977). Also known as "the Old Man," H.M., or "the Maestro", Sir Henry appeared in 22 well-received locked room mysteries and "impossible crime" novels of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, as well as in two short stories.

Dr. Fell vs. H.M.

An American who lived for many years in England, Carr was a very profilic writer who created two major detectives, Sir Henry and Dr. Gideon Fell; publishing as many as four novels a year under two different publishers, Carr used his own name for the Fell stories and the Carter Dickson pseudonym for those about Sir Henry. Although never quite as popular as his contemporaries Agatha Christie, Ellery Queen, and Rex Stout, he was, nevertheless, well-known to the mystery-reading public and enjoyed a very high reputation among his fellow writers.

Merrivale, are, superficially, quite similar. Both are large, blustery, upper-class, eccentric Englishman somewhere between middle-aged and elderly. Dr. Fell, however, who was frankly fat and walked only with the aid of two canes, was clearly modeled on the British writer G. K. Chesterton and was at all times a model of civility and geniality. He had a great mop of untidy hair that was often covered by a "shovel hat" and he generally wore a cape. He lived in a modest cottage and had no official connection to any public authorities. H.M., on the other hand, although stout and with a majestic "corporation", was physically active (he somewhat improbably smashes enormous home runs on a private baseball field in A Graveyard to Let) and was feared for his ill-temper and noisy rages. A well-heeled descendant of the "oldest baronecy" in England, he was an Establishment figure (even though he frequently railed against it) and in the earlier novels was the head of the British Secret Service. Even in the earliest books the bald, bespectacled, and scowling H.M. was clearly a Churchillian figure and in the later novels this similarity was somewhat more consciously evoke

Carr modeled his major detective, the fat and genial lexicographer Dr. Gideon Fell, on Chesterton.

Carr was a master of the locked room mystery, in which a detective solves apparently impossible crimes. Examples of such crimes are murder inside a locked and sealed room (where the only exit from the room is through the locked door -- which cannot be locked from outside the room), or the discovery of a dead body (strangled or knifed at close quarters) surrounded by snow or wet sand in which no footprints but the victim's are visible.

"Most of Carr's stories are compressed versions of his locked-room novels, and at times they benefit from the compression. Probably the best of them are in the Carter Dickson book, The Department of Queer Complaints (1940), although this does not include the brilliantly clever H.M. story The House in Goblin Wood or a successful pastiche which introduces Edgar Allan Poe as a detective."

Dr. Fell and Sir Henry Merrivale

Carr's two major detectives, Dr. Fell and Sir Henry Merrivale, are superficially quite similar. Both are large, blustery, upper-class, eccentric Englishmen somewhere between middle-aged and elderly. Dr. Fell, however, who was frankly fat and walked only with the aid of two canes, was clearly modeled on the British writer G. K. Chesterton and was at all times a model of civility and geniality. He had a great mop of untidy hair that was often covered by a "shovel hat" and he generally wore a cape. He lived in a modest cottage and had no official connection to any public authorities.

"H.M.", on the other hand, although stout and with a majestic "corporation", was physically active and was feared for his ill-temper and noisy rages. In a 1949 novel, A Graveyard to Let, for example, he demonstrates an unexpected talent for hitting baseballs improbable distances. A well-heeled descendant of the "oldest baronetcy" in England, he was an Establishment figure (even though he frequently railed against it) and in the earlier novels was the head of the British Secret Service. In The Plague Court Murders he is said to be qualified as both a barrister and a medical doctor. Even in the earliest books the bald, bespectacled, and scowling H.M. was clearly a Churchillian figure and in the later novels this similarity was somewhat more consciously evoked.

Critical appraisal

For many years now Dr. Fell has generally been considered to be Carr's major creation. The British novelist Kingsley Amis, for instance, writes in his essay "My Favorite Sleuths" that Dr. Fell is one of the three great successors to Sherlock Holmes (the other two are Father Brown and Nero Wolfe) and that H.M., "according to me is an old bore." This may be in part because in the Merrivale novels written after World War II H.M. frequently became a comic caricature of himself, especially in the physical misadventures in which he found himself at least once in every novel. Humorous as these episodes were intended to be, they also tended to have the unwanted effect of diminishing his overall persona. Earlier, however, H.M. had been regarded more favorably by a number of critics. Howard Haycraft, author of the seminal Murder for Pleasure: The Life and Times of the Detective Story, wrote in 1941 that H.M. or "The Old Man" was "the present writer's admitted favorite among contemporary fictional sleuths". In 1938 the British mystery writer R. Philmore wrote in an article called "Inquest on Detective Stories" that Sir Henry was "the most amusing of detectives". And further: "Of course, H.M. is so much the best detective that, once having invented him, his creator could get away with any plot."

Sir Henry Merrivale novels

• The Plague Court Murders - 1934
• The White Priory Murders - 1934
• The Red Widow Murders - 1935
• The Unicorn Murders - 1935
• The Punch and Judy Murders -1936 (U.S. title: The Magic Lantern Murders)
• The Ten Teacups - 1937 (US title: The Peacock Feather Murders)
• The Judas Window" - 1938 (US title: The Crossbow Murder)
• Death in Five Boxes - 1938
• The Reader is Warned- 1939
• And So To Murder - 1940
• Murder in The Submarine Zone - 1940 (U.S. title: Nine - And Death Makes Ten, also published as Murder in the Atlantic)
• Seeing is Believing - 1941 (also published as Cross of Murder)
• The Gilded Man - 1942 (also published as Death and The Gilded Man)
• She Died A Lady - 1943
• He Wouldn't Kill Patience - 1944
• The Curse of the Bronze Lamp - 1945 (U.K. title: Lord of the Sorcerers, 1946)
• My Late Wives - 1946
• The Skeleton in the Clock - 1948
• A Graveyard To Let - 1949
• Night at the Mocking Widow - 1950
• Behind the Crimson Blind—1952
• The Cavalier's Cup—1953

Sir Henry Merrival short stories

• The House in Goblin Wood—Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, November, 1947; Strand Magazine, November, 1947
• The Man Who Explained Miracles—1980

.==External Resource== http://www.mysterylist.com/carr5.htm appraisal of all the HM books