Anthony Berkeley Cox

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Anthony Berkeley Cox (July 5, 1893 - 1971) was a British crime fiction author, born in Watford, England. He wrote under several names, his most famous works being under the name Francis Iles. Other pseudonyms he used included Anthony Berkeley (The Poisoned Chocolates Case) and Monmouth Platts.

List of books written as Anthony Berkeley

• The Wychford Poisoning Case [1926] (RS)
• Roger Sheringham and the Vane Mystery (aka The Mystery at Lover's Cave) [1927] (RS)
• The Silk Stockings Murders [1928] (RS)
• The Poisoned Chocolates Case [1929] (RS)
• The Piccadilly Murder [1929]
• The Second Shot [1930] (RS)
• Top Storey Murder (aka Top Story Murder) [1931] (RS)
• Murder in the Basement [1932] (RS)
• Jumping Jenny (aka Dead Mrs Stratton) [1933] (RS)
• Panic Party (aka Mr Pidgeon's Island) [1934] (RS)
• Trial and Error [1937]
• Not to be Taken (aka A Puzzle in Poison) [1938]
• Death in the House [1939]
• The Roger Sheringham Stories [1994]
• The Avenging Chance [2004]

Books labelled (RS) featured Berkeley's main series detective, Roger Sheringham

Cox's first book, The Layton Court Mystery, also features Sheringham, but was published anonymously.

List of books written as Francis Iles

• Malice Aforethought (1931)
• Before the Fact (1932)
• As for the Woman (1933)

Cox/Iles was quite prominent amongst crime writers of his time and was associated with others in this field, including Christie, Sayers and Chesterton, in the Detection Club.

One of the books which Cox wrote as Francis Iles, Malice Aforethought (1931), may have contained the precursor of James Thurber's "Walter Mitty" (1941). Iles' 'Walter Mitty' was a Dr. Bickleigh. Both Mitty and Bickleigh were dominated by strong wives. But whereas Mitty desperately needed looking after (and his fantasies were, simply, denial of this reality), Bickleigh had married his wife for money and status and had to tolerate her dominance until he took steps to dispose of her (hence the book's title). Bickleigh's fantasies were an escape from harsh reality and in a couple of pages (Chapter 2) Iles has him winning an international cricket match for England almost single-handed, performing life-saving surgery on the King, writing Bickleigh's Symphony in C, fighting in the War: 'Field Marshall Bickleigh .... enlisted on the day the war broke out as a humble private; the first occasion on which he won a VC was...'

That Thurber was a lover of, and knowledgable about, detective fiction, particularly British writers, is demonstrated in his The Macbeth Murder Mystery. But the most striking evidence in support of Bickleigh as the original Mitty comes from reading the two pieces. There is a marked similarity.

Here is Isles/Cox's Bickleigh:

Dr Bickleigh had a habit which he would have died rather than confess to another living soul. It was both as dear and as shameful to him as a monster-child to its mother. He used to soothe himself into sleep each night with what he thought of as his 'visions'.

These were the most meticulous mental pictures of some situation of high importance of which Dr Bickleigh himself was the core and centre. He would roll over on his right side in his single bed, hitch the pillow under his shoulder, curl up a little more compactly in sheer luxury of bodily rest, and then think to himself, Well, now, what shall we do tonight? What about a little cricket?

And then for ten minutes he would follow with his mind's eyes a sequence of little pictures showing Dr Bickleigh being selected to play for England in the last Test Match to decide the series. The papers indignantly asking, 'Who is Edmund Bickleigh?' Australia going in first and making 637. England all out for 46. The follow-on, and nine wickets down for 32. Dr Edmund Bickleigh last man in, followed by the hoots and jeers of the ignorant crowd. A terrific hit for six right over the pavilion at Lord's, 'My God, but this man can hit!' Another, and another, among the frantic cheering of that same crowd, the batting all that day and half the next, with a six every other ball, bagging the bowling all the time. The other man out at last. 'Edmund Bickleigh, 645 not out'. 'My God, he's actually made more than the whole Australian eleven'. Then Australia's second innings, and their crack batsmen clean bowled one after the other by Edmund Bickleigh's unplayable off-breaks; till England, thanks entirely to Edmund Bickleigh, finally wins by the margin of three runs. 'Dr Bickleigh, you have saved England.'

But by that time Dr Bickleigh would be comfortably and happily asleep. That was big favourite vision, though being summoned to Buckingham Palace ran it close. 'Your Majesty, there is only one man in the world who can perform this terrible operation on you with any hope at all, but if it is not performed you will certainly die.' 'And who is that, Sir Godfrey?' 'A brilliant surgeon called Edmund Bickleigh, your Majesty. He elects to bury himself at Wyvern's Cross, in Devonshire, disguising his genius under the guise of a general practitioner; but we who know him know that he is the greatest surgeon of this and all time.' 'Send for him, Sir Godfrey’. Dr Bickliegh, you realize The King's life is in your hands.' 'I can but do my best, Sir Godfrey.’.... 'Marvellous! Stupendous! Not another man could have done it Dr Bickleigh, England owes you a debt of gratitude which....’ ‘Rise Lord Bickleigh’.

There were other stock lavourites: Wimbledon, Bickleigh's Symphony in C minor. The Bickleigh exhibition at Burlington House. ‘Bickleigh 'may owe something of his masterly technique to Rembrandt, but the brilliant manner in which he has transmuted it to his own purposes is all his own. We venture to assert that never before has the world been made to realize what effects are possible to genius armed with a mere palette and...’ The Collected Works of Edmund Bickleigh, the Open Golf Championship, the BBC series of Bickleigh concerts. The war. 'Field Marshal Bickleigh, it is known now, enlisted on the day war broke out as a humble private; the first occasion on which he won the VC was..’ Bickleigh the Great Lover, and the rest of them.ja:アントニー・バークリー sv:Anthony Berkeley