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Blackmon, Anita

Page history last edited by Jon 12 years, 2 months ago

Anita BlackmonAnita Blackmon (1893-1943) was an American author who published two mystery novels, Murder a la Richelieu (1937) and There Is No Return (1938).

 

Anita Blackmon was born in 1893 in the small eastern Arkansas town of Augusta. The daughter of Augusta postmaster and mayor Edwin E. Blackmon and his wife, Augusta Public School principal Eva Hutchison Blackmon, both originally from Washburn, Illinois, Anita Blackmon revealed a literary bent from a young age, penning her first short story at the age of seven. By all accounts, Blackmon grew up into a vivacious, attractive, outgoing young woman.

 

The future novelist graduated from high school at the age of fourteen and attended classes at Ouachita College and the University of Chicago. Returning home from Chicago, she taught languages in Augusta for five years before moving to Little Rock, where she continued to teach school. In 1920, Blackmon left teaching and married Harry Pugh Smith in Little Rock. The couple moved to St. Louis, where Blackmon had an uncle who served as a St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad vice president, and in 1922 Blackmon published the first of what would be over a thousand short stories.

 

Blackmon’s short stories appeared in a diverse collection of pulps, including Love Story Magazine, All-Story Love Stories, Cupid’s Diary, Detective Tales and Weird Tales. Blackmon began publishing novels in 1934 with a work entitled Her Private Devil, one that provoked some scandalized talk back in Augusta. Devil was published by William Godwin, a press, as described by Bill Pronzini, that specialized in titillating novels that pushed the sexual envelope of the day.

 

In the United States, both of Blackmon’s mysteries were published by Doubleday Doran’s Crime Club, one of the most prominent mystery publishers in the country. Murder a la Richelieu was published as well in England (as The Hotel Richelieu Murders), France (as On assassine au Richelieu) and Germany (as Adelaide lasst nicht locker), while There Is No Return was published in England also (under the rather more lurid title The Riddle of the Dead Cats). In classic HIBK fashion, Blackmon employed a series character in both novels, a peppery middle-aged southern spinster named Adelaide Adams (and nicknamed “the old battle-ax”). Blackmon also wrote mainstream novels under her married name of Mrs Harry Pugh Smith.

 

See also http://thepassingtramp.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/had-i-but-known-authors-1-anita.html

 

Bibliography

 

Murder a la Richelieu (1937)

There is No Return (1938)

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