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Sixty Years of Sexton Blake 2. The Palmy Days of Sexton Blake by Walter Webb This article first appeared in THE COLLECTORS' DIGEST Vol.8 no.86, February 1954. © Walter Webb As the mighty armies of the Kaiser swept across Europe, spreading death and destruction in their wake, Christmas 1914 was not the happy, carefree Yuletide as others before it had been; the unusual sight of so many young men in khaki, and the military reverses abroad, had the effect of spreading over what would otherwise have been an occasion for gaiety and joy a veneer of uneasiness and gloom. But, for a time, at least, the stories of Sexton Blake continued to come as of yore. A double number issue of the UNION JACK, containing a story of Mademoiselle Yvonne, brought to a close a satisfactory year, in so far as that paper was concerned. The war did not minimise Blake's popularity in the least; on the contrary it increased it to a remarkable extent, as the following facts prove quite conclusively: September 1915 saw the birth of the SEXTON BLAKE LIBRARY, one volume per month being issued until July 1916 when, although faced with a paper shortage, an extra volume was added. When paper did get really scarce and periodicals, including the MAGNET and GEM, shortened the length of their contents, the demand for Blake was such that no restriction in his case was considered, and to avoid any such repetition, a smaller type was used. It was in August 1915 that Blake readers were introduced to Leon Kestrel, the master mummer, who was to prove one of the most popular crook characters ever to appear in opposition to Blake. Jack Lewis, his creator, remains today as the sole survivor of those men who related Blake's exploits during the first world war. As the year was drawing to its close, the quaint character of Humble Begge, the mild, scholarly-looking individual known as the Man of Peace, made his first appearance. Never before, nor since, has the old country felt such bitterness and hatred towards another as it did during that fateful year, for the atrocities committed by the Hun were such that not only did the newspapers make wrathful protests, but several Blake writers made bitter denunciations of their tactics in the stories they wrote for the UNION JACK. And well they might! there are still those who remember the horror of that occasion on the 7th of May when the Lusitania was sunk by the German submarine U20, and caused the death of 1,198 men, women and children - all non-combatants - by drowning. With so many families mourning the loss of loved ones, Christmas 1915 was one of heartache and anxiety rather than of happiness and serenity, but for the Sexton Blake enthusiast there was that usual double-number of the UNION JACK to lighten the gloom a little - a story of Yvonne by George Hamilton Teed. 1916 saw the first published Sexton Blake work of Robert Murray, famed creator of the Confederation stories. That famous and popular personage of the C.I.D., Scotland Yard, Detective-inspector Coutts, created by the aforementioned writer, also made his debut that year. By that time stories of The Snake and The Scorpion had been told, but in their stead came Captain Horatio Peak, D.S.O., and Dirk Dolland, the gentleman cracksman, otherwise known as The Bat. The latter, from being a dangerous enemy, was to become one of Blake's firmest friends in later years. Blake readers were digesting a story called "The Parrowby Will Mystery", by Allan Blair, when on the front page of nearly every newspaper in the world was splashed the news of the sinking of H.M.S. Hampshire, with Lord Kitchener on board. As the long and bitter battles of Verdun and Jutland raged there were few Blake stories which did not deal with the war to some extent. It was in 1917 that Sexton Blake lost one of his famous authors, for Norman Goddard was killed in action. A transport driver, the author was making his way up the line under heavy fire when he was struck down. It was in tales of the wild and woolly West that Norman Goddard revelled, and although never at his best when wrestling with a Blake story, one finds it difficult to recall more than one really poor contribution. His last detective story was published in the SEXTON BLAKE LIBRARY in January 1917. It was entitled "The Man With the Green Eyes", and featured the master criminal, George Marsden Plummer. That same year new characters continued to be introduced. In the glamour department, there was the voluptuous Marie Galante, Glory Gale, the girl reporter, and Camille, and they were joined by Prince Menes, the Egyptian, and the crook known as The Black Rat. Paper shortage was then acute, and both the UNION JACK and SEXTON BLAKE LIBRARY were forced to cut down on their supplies, with the result that a new, smaller type had to be used in order to cram into the restricted space the same story length as before. In October we read G. H. Teed's last Blake story for nearly five years, when the author answered the call. With him went Jack Lewis, but in his case the time lapse was not so great - the Kestrel author was back with us again after two years in the navy. The loss of those two writers left a very big gap, for with the authors went also the many characters they had conceived. That gap was never adequately filled, even though Edwy Searles Brooks and Sidney Drew were introduced and brought in their own famous characters to entertain us - Nelson Lee, Nipper and Waldo, the Wonder-Man by the former, and Ferrers Lord, Gan Waga and Rupert Thurston by Drew. The author of the St. Frank's stories introduced the Letter File series, in which the narrative was unfolded by means of a series of letters written by one character to another, e, g, from Sexton Blake to Nelson Lee, and from Tinker to Nipper, and vice versa. Novel, if not particularly brilliant, those stories were attractively written. UNION JACK readers were introduced to the sinister Mr. Reece during the summer months of 1918, one of the most ruthless characters ever conceived by Robert Murray. Mr. Reece was very soon to become president of that notorious army of crooks known as the Criminals' Confederation. Blake fans were purchasing a copy of the UNION JACK containing a story called "The Dual Detectives" by E. S. Brooks, which featured, in addition to the famous Baker Street pair, Nelson Lee and Nipper, when the brightest news of the war came from the Allied front. German offensives had been stemmed, the Allies were attacking on every front. Then on November 9 the revolution in Berlin, the abdication of the Kaiser, and two days later that well-remembered eleventh day - the occasion of the Armistice. Peace again, a gradual improvement in paper supplies, the introduction into the UNION JACK of the gigantic crime organisation known as the Criminals' Confederation. During that terrifically hot summer of 1919 when the grass was burnt yellow and brown in earth baked to iron hardness in the scorching heat, came Trouble Nantucket, the American detective, and the welcome return of Leon Kestrel, the fascinating personality of Fifette Bierce, Madrano, the Spanish steeplejack, Lessing, Semiramis and the rest of the notorious Kestrel Syndicate. In October came the first exploit of the bizarre and very popular character, Zenith the Albino, followed six months later by that unusual personality, Count Bonalli, known as The Owl, due to his ability of being able to see in the dark. Came Cavendish Doyle, British Secret Service agent, and the small-time crook, known as Basil Wicketshaw, both conceptions of W. Murray Graydon. Sexton Blake was fast then approaching his greatest year. By 1920 the many admirers of Yvonne were happy again, for there was mademoiselle, shoulder to shoulder with Sexton Blake, in opposition to the Confederation, although whether with or without the authority of her conceptor, Hamilton Teed, it is hard to say. The UNION JACK was sporting a new coloured cover when Granite Grant, of the British Secret Service, and the petite Mademoiselle Julie, of the French Secret Service began what was to be quite a good run in the pages of Blake's papers. A curious point is that although Grant was featured in both, Julie never appeared in the UNION JACK. The author of those stories was W. W. Sayer, who wrote as Pierre Quiroule. As his French pseudonym suggests, Sayer was something of a rolling stone. New characters continued to arrive. There was Dr. Leppermann, the criminal scientist, and Saburo, the Japanese detective, create by Trevor C. Wignall. We said goodbye to Glory Gale in 1919, but bid welcome to more glamour in the shapeliness of Mademoiselle Claire Delisle, who came early in 1921 followed two months later by another crime menace in Dr. Ferraro. As new authors such as Alfred Edgar, Michael Poole, Coutts Brisbane, H. Gregory Hill, F. Addington Symonds and L. H. Brooks were introduced so did the criminal antagonists of Sexton Blake grow in number. Included among them was that unusual character, known as The Raven, who was accompanied by the Chinese, Quong Lu. The ranks of the exponents of feminine allure were still further strengthened when Ysabel de Ferre, the Black Duchess of Jorsica, with dark eyes fixed upon the presidency of the Criminals' Confederation, came to conquer, only to find Sexton Blake a stumbling block to her ambitions. Throughout the summer of 1921, which is remembered as being disastrous for English cricket, when the burly Warwick Armstrong and his fellow Australians easily retained the "Ashes", the stories of Blake in both the UNION JACK and SEXTON BLAKE LIBRARY attained a remarkably high level. Christmas of that year saw the introduction of an interesting new character - that giant of a man, known as Janssen the Moonslayer, who was the creation of Stanley Gordon Shaw, brother of the famous Captain Frank H. Shaw. Gordon Shaw stepped most ably into the place vacated by Cecil Hayter, whose long association with Blake had been brought to a close. The year of 1922 was the greatest in the history of Sexton Blake, for during its fifty-two weeks more words of the character were written per month than at any time previously in his career. An extra volume of the S.B.L. was added to the four already being published per month, making a total output in that library alone of 300,000 words. Added to this there was a further 100,000 in the issues comprising the monthly output of the UNION JACK, which brought the figures to no less than 400,000 words per month. 400,000 words written around one character in one month is a record never equalled - in fact, nothing remotely approaching even near distance of it has occurred in the realms of detective fiction before, and it is safe to say, never will! Truly, of Blake's palmy days those were the palmiest of all! And it was at that time the Detective Supplement was added to the pages of the UNION JACK, one of the most interesting crime features of that era. In that supplement was printed the earliest work of a very young writer who was destined to make a name for himself under a pseudonym which is known throughout the British Isles. Paul Renin, author of, at least, two Sexton Blake stories under his own name and very probably writer of several of the anonymously published tales in the UNION JACK in the 1920's, entered a different field of fiction writing when the Supplement was discontinued, and turned out a long succession of some of the most torrid sex romances ever written in that era. The return of G. H. Teed, with some of the best work he has ever written, helped to make 1922 a year to be remembered. It was then that Yvonne was withdrawn from the company of Dirk Dolland, Mr. Reece and the Criminals' Confederation, and placed in surroundings into which she had hitherto been accustomed under the guiding hand of her original creator. Those three amiable-looking fashion-plates, Archie Pherison, Reggie Fetherstone and Algy Somerton, otherwise known as The Three Musketeers, comprised as deadly a trio of crooks as ever crossed swords with Sexton Blake. They were also products of Blake's golden age, and it is also interesting to recollect that a famous author of Blake stories also made his debut at that time. During 1922 Andrew Murray became indisposed, and was unable to turn out his popular stories of Carlac, Kew and the Hon. John Lawless; so, in order to meet the demand, a young recruit named H. Clifford Gibbons was given the role of "ghost-writer", and it was under his authorship that several stories featuring the aforementioned stock characters were written. Later, under the well-known pen-name of "Gilbert Chester", the new recruit created those popular characters Gilbert and Eileen Hale. Yes, indeed, Blake's stock was never so high as in that eventful year; but soon there was to come a change, gradual at first but becoming more marked as the years drifted by. The days of plenty were to slowly recede; a changing scene was to reveal the dismaying fact that the steady upward climb had been arrested and a slackening grip was ensuring only one thing - the decline of Sexton Blake! |