Sexton Blake
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- "Sexton Blake" redirects here. For other persons and things named Sexton Blake, see Sexton Blake(disambiguation).
Sexton Blake is a fictional detective who has appeared in many British comic strips and novels. He first appeared in the story "The Missing Millionaire," by Harry Blyth (writing as Hal Meredeth), in The Halfpenny Marvel #6, on December 20, 1893. He appeared in a few more stories by Meredeth. He appeared from 1893 to 1978, running to over 4,000 stories by some 200 different authors.
His adventures appeared in a variety of publications including Union Jack and its successor Detective Weekly from 1904 to 1940 and simultaneously in The Sexton Blake Library, from 1915 to 1963. Writers who worked on Blake's appearances include John Creasey, Jack Trevor Story and Michael Moorcock.
As the years passed Blake's character underwent various permutations. Originally he was created in the vein of earlier 19th century detectives, but late in the 1890s Blake's authors consciously modeled him on Sherlock Holmes. It was not until 1919 that Blake took on a more distinctive personality. The golden age of the story papers matched Blake's, as he became more action-oriented than Holmes and duelled with a variety of memorable enemies, including the Byronic master thief Zenith the Albino.
There were several Sexton Blake stage plays, the earliest one produced in 1907. The first Blake film appeared in 1909 and during the silent era there were thirteen more half-hour Blake features. In 1939 BBC Radio broadcast a serial called Enter Sexton Blake, followed in 1940 by A Case for Sexton Blake. Later in 1967, BBC aired another radio serial on the character. ITV aired Sexton Blake from 1967 to 1971 and Sexton Blake and the Demon God was a short television show produced by the BBC in 1978.