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Markham, Virgil

Page history last edited by Jon 11 years, 11 months ago

Virgil Markham (1899-1973) spent over half his life in the shadow of his father, the once renowned and much beloved poet and man of letters Edwin Markham (1852-1940), author of "The Man with the Hoe," in the first half or so of the twentieth century one of the most celebrated American poems (it was inspired by the famous Jean-Francois Millet painting).  Actually, I should say more than half his life, because even after his father died, Virgil Markham was the tender of his father's literary reputation, still best known for being the son of Edwin Markham.

 

Yet Virgil Markham was an interesting person in his own right.  He received a B.A. from Columbia University and an an M.A. from the University of California at Berkeley (his 1923 thesis was titled The Satirical Method of Addison and Steele).  In the 1920s he taught at UC Berkeley's Cora L. Williams Institute for Creative Education and the University of California Extension Division.  Under the auspices of the latter Markham in 1929 launched what was called the first university class on mystery literature, "The Development and Technique of the Mystery Story."

 

After traveling around Europe for half of 1925, Markham in 1926 published a picaresque historical novel, The Scamp, which was set in Europe.  He would use European settings as well for six of the eight mystery novels he was to publish between 1928 and 1936.

 

Bibliography

Death in the Dusk (1928)

Shock! (1930) aka The Black Door

The Devil Drives (1932)

Song of Doom (1932) aka Red Warning

Inspector Rusby's Finale (1933)

The Dead Are Prowling (1934)

The Deadly Jest (1935)

Snatch (1936)

 

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