A. E. W. Mason - Complete Works of A. E. W. Mason

The Complete Works of

A. E. W. MASON

(1865-1948)

Contents

Delphi Classics 2019

Version 1

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The Complete Works of

A. E. W. MASON

with introductions by Gill Rossini

By Delphi Classics, 2019

Complete Works of A. E. W. Mason

First published in the United Kingdom in 2019 by Delphi Classics.

Delphi Classics, 2019.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

ISBN: 978 1 78877 959 3

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Camberwell Green, London A. E. W. Mason was born in Camberwell, a southern suburb of London, in 1865.

Grove Lane, Camberwell Mason was born in Enfield House on Upper Grove Lane.

Published in 1910 in Britain by Hodder & Stoughton, in Canada by The Musson Book Company and in America by Charles Scribners Sons, this is the first of six novels and a short story featuring Inspector Gabriel Hanuad, the French detective. By this time, Mason had been a published novelist for fifteen years and despite being the first book in the Hanaud series, it was a best seller.

In creating the character of Inspector Hanaud, Mason was determined to create a detective as unlike his fictional contemporary, Sherlock Holmes, as possible. Where Holmes is tall and gaunt, Hanuad is stout and broad shouldered with a full and almost heavy face and thick black hair, (one character describes him as being like a Newfoundland dog), affable by nature and he is also a professional police detective working for the Sret, not a gifted amateur like the cool mannered Englishman. In addition, Hanaud uses psychological insights to catch culprits, rather than gathering scientific evidence in the manner of Holmes although neither man is prone to moral judgements. However, Hanaud can be light of foot for a large man he moves as lightly as an antelope his insights are equally incisive as those of Holmes and he will brook no lack of co-operation from witnesses. His quiet eyes miss nothing and his periodic buffoonery has a purpose and disguises an incisive mind. As Mason says in the novel House of the Arrow , those who encounter Hanaud must be prepared to be awed at one moment, leaped upon unpleasantly at the next, ridiculed at a third and treated with great courtesy and friendship at the fourth. Hanuad is also like Holmes with both men, we can never fully know or understand them, perhaps because of their mercurial temperament and superior skills. It has been suggested that Mason was influenced in the creation of Hanaud by Robert Barrs French policeman detective, Eugene Valmont (1907).

Whilst Holmes clearly was not the inspiration for Masons detective, two real life police officers were Mac and Goron both led the Parisian Sret and it is known that Mason studied their respective memoirs. It has been suggested that he was also influenced by novelist mile Gaboriaus fictional detective, Monsieur Lecoq. In his turn, Mason and his character are thought to have been an inspiration for Agatha Christie when she developed her own Belgian detective, Hercules Poirot as an example, Hanaud refers to himself in the third person, something Poirot also does and both men have an occasional slip in their use of spoken English.

Masons strong belief in the necessity for outstanding characterisation was evident in the preface he wrote to an omnibus collection of the first three Hanaud novels: Detective fiction has been judged not so much by the ingenuity of its plots, but by the higher standard of its characterisation. His efforts did not go unnoticed by his peers contemporaries such as fellow mystery author Dorothy L. Sayers and literary critic Howard Haycraft, both praised his use of psychology in the development of characters and stories, the latter stating Mason was the first such writer after Wilkie Collins to do so effectively; he also wrote among the most subtly conceived and described in the genreHanaud easily stands out as one of the indisputable greats among fictional sleuths.