Fotografía de autor

Rex Dolphin (1915–1990)

Autor de Trouble Is My Name!

3+ Obras 3 Miembros 1 Reseña

Obras de Rex Dolphin

Ride the Man Down (1968) 1 copia

Obras relacionadas

Weird Tales (1988) — Contribuidor — 270 copias
100 Wild Little Weird Tales (1994) — Contribuidor — 187 copias

Etiquetado

Conocimiento común

Fecha de nacimiento
1915-03-15
Fecha de fallecimiento
1990-02
Lugar de nacimiento
Pershore, Worcestershire, England
Lugar de fallecimiento
Amersham, Buckinghamshire, England
Biografía breve
Reginald Charles `Rex` Dolphin is chiefly remembered for a number of titles he wrote for Fleetway and Howard Baker Books in the Sexton Blake Library series. His titles included Trouble is my Name, Guilty Party, Murder Goes Nap, The Trail of the Golden Girl and Driven to Kill. One of his titles for that series, The World Shakers, was credited to the house pseudonym `Desmond Reid`. A horror story of his, The Vampires of Finisterre was credited by HBB to the equally fictitious `Peter Saxon`.###His Speak Ill of the Dead was credited to `Richard Williams` - again, a house pseudonym ###

Miembros

Reseñas

From a sample of his personal correspondence (see www.sextonblake.co.uk ), we know quite a bit about Rex Dolphin.

We know that he tried in his writing to combine the best elements of both the `New Order` and `Golden Age` SBLs ( W Howard Baker took up editorship of the SBL in the mid-`50s, with a mandate to reverse the declining fortunes of the ailing periodical. He was reviled by lovers of the so-called `Golden Age` of (pre-war) SBLs. His period in office is sometimes referred to as the `New Order`. Soince the phrase has Nazi overtones, I would think it was originally meant as a derogatory term.)

Dolphin found writing SBLs more difficult than his other writing, since he was presented with a cast of largely ready-made characters and had no idea who the readers actually were. "No-one knows. Even Howard Baker doesn`t know !" he commented plaintively. We also know that on at least one occasion, Baker returned a story of Dolphins for amendment, saying it was "too slick".

`Slick` is not a term I wuld use for this story. I would say that the writing is craftsman like, and that Dolphin has a distinctive `voice`, making the story very much his own. The plot is well-thought, involving a (relatively) sizeable section harking back to a previous court case, the outcome of which has a bearing on the case in hand.

There are two passages which seem quite uncharacteristic - one quite pulpy and one almost Victorian in tone. I suspect heavy-handed editing or last-minute revisions here.

Purists may well deride the adventures of Sexton Blake as being `not real literature`. I would argue that the best Blakes are rather better than many `proper` crime stories and deserve at least as much respect.

I will certainly be seeking out more of Mr Dolphin`s efforts, both Blake and non-Blake.

(Please excuse this rather hurried review, but hope it proves helpful.)
… (más)
 
Denunciada
nickhoonaloon | Feb 7, 2008 |

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