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Sixty Years of Sexton Blake 1. The First Twenty Years by Walter Webb This article first appeared in THE COLLECTORS' DIGEST Vol.7 no.83, November 1953. © Walter Webb NOTE: This article was published at a time when Blake scholars, such as the author, were actively investigating the publishing history of the character. A great deal of what we know now was not known then, and some claims made herein have since been superseded by fresh discoveries (mostly made by those same scholars at a later date). Nevertheless, this article provides a fascinating overview of the Sexton Blake phenomenon.  It was exactly 60 years ago that the now world-famous name of Sexton Blake appeared in print for the first time, and for the last 48 years, without a break, the thrilling adventures he has undergone in all parts of the world in his fight against crime has endeared him to millions. To have survived the first world war was no mean feat; to come through the second and most disastrous conflict of all, what time nearly all the other weeklies and monthlies were going out of circulation, was proof enough of the enormous popularity he had built up during the preceding years.It was a modest little story that first ever adventure of Sexton Blake, comprising no more than 15,000 or 16,000 words in length, written by a man named Blyth for the ½d MARVEL, and passed for publication by its editor, a forceful, go-ahead young man, named Somers J. Summers. Harry Blyth, an already ageing author, a round-faced, rather sleepy-looking gentleman, thick-set, with a scrubby dark moustache, was the man who gave Blake to the world. Quite a good writer, he died in the very early days. Blake appeared spasmodically, sometimes in the pages of the MARVEL but more often in the UNION JACK, which paper eventually became his own, and in 1895 W. Shaw Rae took over from Blyth. Shaw Rae, whose real name was Treeton, was a cheery little man, fair-haired, with a big moustache and side-boards. A happy slave to the nicotine habit, it was rarely, indeed, that he was seen without a cigarette between his lips. Authors who followed Shaw Rae as Blake chroniclers were, in the order of their appearance, as follows: Arnold Grahame (UJ no.72), Melton Whyte (no.75), and Herbert (no. 82). In no. 147 Shaw Rae introduced a Chinese boy named We-wee as assistant to Blake and the little Celestial figured in about a dozen adventures. The sixth UJ author to write of Blake was a man named Campbell Brown, then followed Paul Herring, Mark Darran, Percival Cooke, and Alec G. Pearson, the latter bringing in his own character, Maxwell Grey, the sea detective, to work in harness with Sexton Blake. When, at five o'clock in the afternoon on October the 11th, 1899, the armed forces of two Boer Republics set to carry out their threat of sweeping the English from South Africa into the sea and so began the Boer, it might be expected that Blake would soon be drawn into the conflict. But, as a matter of fact, very few Blake stories were published during that savage campaign, and in none of them did his authors show any inclination to draw him into it. As far as the Boer War was concerned, the plans of President Stephanus Paulus Johannes Kruger, the evil genius of that epoch, had no interference at the hands of Sexton Blake, whilst those famous British generals, Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener, among others, got no material benefit from a Blake working behind the scenes in the interest of his country. For a period of nearly two ears, Blake was not featured in the UNION JACK; then in October 1904 Alec G. Pearson brought him back, and, two issues later, Herbert Maxwell introduced Tinker for the first time. Blake now began to appear more regularly and from the 25th October, 1905, he began his unbroken run in the pages of the UNION JACK. More authors began to enter the arena of Blake writers, the four most regular contributors being W. Murray Graydon, who came across from the United States, Mark Darran, who introduced Mr. Spearing of Scotland Yard, Herbert Maxwell and Beverley Kent. Then there was Michael Storm, still an unsolved mystery where Blake is concerned, who is known to have written quite a good number of stories. Storm suddenly disappeared in mysterious circumstances, and was then "ghosted" for by G. H. Teed, whose style of writing was similar to Storm's own. When Storm's death was established, Teed came into his own, and although he introduced Yvonne anonymously, stories under his own name appeared at intervals in other periodicals. Herbert Maxwell, a good writer, who wrote some very readable stories, dropped out of the UNION JACK in 1908 with, according to my lists, nineteen Blake yarns to his credit, his place being taken by Allan Blair, who made his debut that same year. Lobangu and Sir Richard Losely appeared occasionally; they were popular characters of the early days, and were joined by George Marsden Plummer, who made his bow in January 1908. A curious point about that first story was the fact that, although an editorial announcement was made to the effect that Plummer would be appearing again very shortly, it was eighteen months before we heard anything more about him. Then, on the 24th July, 1909, he appeared in an exploit, entitled IN DEADLY GRIP, in which Sir Richard Losely made a brief appearance. But it was not the Plummer we grew to know in later years; he was not the big, powerful, bearded villain of the first world war days, and no mention was made of his nail-biting habit, and the curious way his eyes glowed a baleful green when anger suffused him. Clearly, the man who wrote those first two Plummer stories and who doubtless, created the character, was not the same individual as he who chronicled the later ones. I have a strong theory that the man who first brought Plummer into conflict with Blake was Lewis Carlton, one-time editor of the UNION JACK, and BOYS' JOURNAL, and that he relinquished his monopoly of the character when, owing to the great popularity of the stories which featured him, it was decided to star him in PLUCK and the BOYS' JOURNAL as well. John Bobin, later known as Mark Osborne, then took over Plummer on behalf of the UNION JACK, Mark Darran wrote about him for PLUCK and Lewis Carlton continued to relate his exploits against Blake in the BOYS' JOURNAL. Carlton despite his editorial duties, once found time to appear in a film featuring Sexton Blake, and his name appears in the cast as playing the part of Tinker which points to the fact that he must have been a very young man at the time. After October 1909, I cannot trace any more stories by Beverley Kent so it is probable that he dropped out during that year, a retirement which left the UNION JACK a lot poorer, for Kent, a lively, convincing writer, was, in my opinion, the best of all the very early early contributors. In his hands Blake was a big, genial man brimful of energy and wit, Tinker a happy-go-lucky, harum-scarum schoolboy type. The year 1910 can almost be described as W. Murray Graydon's year, for no less than a third of the stories of Blake published came from his pen during that period. George Marsden Plummer, sometimes in alliance with another shady character named John Marsh, gave Blake quite a warm time during the same year. 1911 is noteworthy for the reason that Andrew Murray came on the scene, and introduced Count Ivor Carlac as an enemy to Blake the following year. The second half of 1912 saw the detective in continuous action against Plummer and Carlac; and then an entirely new note was sounded in Blake's activities. In January 1913, the glamorous Mademoiselle Yvonne came to pit her feminine wiles against the machinations of the men who had been responsible for the death of her father and, consequently, against Sexton Blake, who sought to restrain her from her grim purpose. How Yvonne's first feelings of hatred towards Blake, when he foiled her again and again in her intentions, and how that hatred turned gradually into a great respect, and finally, love, for the grim, determined detective, and how that deep affection was reciprocated, yet reluctantly spurned, when Blake put his career first, has been told in many a thrilling and human episode. Three weeks after Yvonne's introduction came Dr. Huxton Rymer, the big, bearded adventurer, who gave Blake many a rough house in all parts of the globe. Rymer was a great character; crook though he was he at once excited the sympathy of his reader by reason of his sterling qualities. Unlike Plummer, who was thoroughly bad, Rymer had certain scruples, and fought in accordance with them. In June of the same year, Prince Wu Ling, of the Brotherhood of the Yellow Beetle, brought yellow menace from the East, and now Blake's enemies began to assume very formidable proportions. It is still 1913, and that 13th year did begin to look like proving Blake's unlucky number, for one month later still another bad hat came along to further harass him, already overworked though he was. This time it was the stunted frame and big, bald head of Professor Kew which thrust themselves into Blake's province; and then to cap it all, no less a person than Maxwell Scott had to bring in another adversary, to make the odds against Blake quite overwhelming. This time it was the Scorpion, and now Blake, hard-pressed, and denied the services of Mr. Spearing, who had dropped out of the stories, could have wished for the invaluable services of his close friend and fellow-investigator, Nelson Lee, of Gray's Inn Road. But, after the case of The Winged Terror, Blake and Lee had gone their different ways, and Blake had to rely on practically the sole assistance of Tinker. Blake's cup of bitterness must have overflown when just before the end of the year another of the crook fraternity crossed his path. Meet now Henri Garock, known to the Underworld as The Snake. The first faint rumblings heralding the bitter conflict that was on to spread such chaos and indescribable misery throughout Europe could be felt as Blake continued his onslaught against this fresh wave of crime which had been thrust upon society. Even then new adversaries streamed into the arena. We met Aubrey Dexter, the gentleman crook; the big crime organisation known as the Council of Eleven; and Ezra Q. Maitland, and his wife, Kathleen, known as Broadway Kate. The Hon. John Lawliss, later known as Lawless, came along, but in his case the issue was very different; he came to aid Blake, not to fight him. The Kaiser, who had appeared in several UNION JACK stories, and had been painted in colours other than those he deserved by one or two Blake authors whose hearts were more generous than truthful, now became an object of derision and scorn as the clouds of war grow ominously black and the feeling that a military upheaval was now inevitable became a stranglehold. Naturally, when the storm did break, we came in for a spate of war-stories. First among Blake authors to join up was Norman Goddard, who wrote under the pseudonym of Mark Darran. A good soldier, he was, unhappily, never to return to the surroundings in which he loved to roam. Despite the war, there vas no paper shortage at first, and double-numbers continued to be issued in the UNION JACK, and in 1915 the SEXTON BLAKE LIBRARY made its appearance. As the days ahead were to become a terribly grim and anxious period, so, too, were they destined to be the prelude to an era in which the Sexton Blake stories enjoyed a popularity never before achieved in the world oi fiction. Blake's stock was rising to dizzy heights, his grip on the imagination of his public was ever tightening. The best stories of his adventures were yet to come - as yet the Criminals' Confederation, Leon Kestrel, Waldo, Zenith - all of these were unknown, but soon to make their bow in a long succession of popular stories, and so begin what will be known in the second part of this article as THE PALMY DAYS OF SEXTON BLAKE. |