At the Irving, five people spread themselves over the two steps and sacrificed in warmth what they gained in comfort Greek tragedy was not popular. Here and there, of course, there was no column. But no last trump could have so galvanized the weary attendants on Thespis and Terpsichore standing in patient column of four before the gates of promise. Grim sounds to preface an evening’s amusement.
It was between seven and eight o’clock on a March evening, and all over London the bars were being drawn back from pit and gallery doors. The Man in the Queue starts out in front of popular London theatre, with a crowded line of hopeful people waiting for hours for a chance to see the most popular musical comedy show of the season, Didn’t You Know?, starring the lovely actress and dancer Ray Marcable (say it out loud – yes, it is what it looks like, though I didn’t twig myself until much later on in the story, when it was explained to me) in her last week of appearing in England before setting sail to try her luck in America. This was a writer who continually honed and improved her craft an admirable – and far from universal – thing.
I easily forgive the inconsistencies, because the writing is very good indeed, and I love seeing how the author progresses in her novels from the slight occasional awkwardnesses of this one to the sophistication of something like Brat Farrar, which I’ve just read as well, written twenty years later. Winning the Dutton Mystery Prize, it was published in 1929 under the pseudonym of Gordon Daviot-the name by which she preferred to be known, in both public and private.Ĭonsidering the time in which it was written, and the time frame it was written in, this novel is an accomplished piece of work, though it is far from flawless.
Tey’s first detective novel, The Man in the Queue – dedicated ‘To Brisena, who actually wrote it’ – Brisena was a nickname she gave to her typewriter – was a highly accomplished piece of work for a beginner. It was reportedly written in two weeks for a competition sponsored by the publisher Methuen. Her first novel, The Man in the Queue, was published in 1929. Tey started writing almost as soon as she could walk, according to a note from her literary agent, which also states that “writing was always her greatest amusement.” She published short stories and poems during the late 1920s in Scottish newspapers and in the English Review. This was Josephine Tey’s (to use the author’s best-known pseudonym, though she apparently preferred “Gordon Daviot”) first full-length book, written very quickly, reputedly in two weeks, according to this internet source, Josephine Tey: A Very Private Person: Originally published as The Killer in the Crowd by Gordon Daviot, and released with the new title under the Josephine Tey pseudonym after author Elizabeth Macintosh’s death in 1959. The Man in the Queueby Josephine Tey ~ 1929.
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