Golden Age: Ronald Knox

Priest. Author. Creator of mystery’s “ten commandments”. Original member of the Detection Club. Ronald Knox was an early influence on the mystery genre, yet his writing is not widely known. In today’s episode, Brook and Sarah discuss their theories on why as they explore the life and work of this mystery pioneer.

Discussed

“Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes” (1912) Ronald A. Knox

The Viaduct Murders (1925) Ronald A. Knox

“The Adventure of the First Class Carriage” (1947) Ronald A. Knox

A Book of Acrostics (1924) Ronald A. Knox

The Life of Right Reverend Ronald Knox (1959) Evelyn Waugh

War of the Worlds (1938 broadcast) Orson Welles

The Footsteps at the Loch (1928) Ronald A. Knox

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Transcript

This transcript is generated by a computer and there may be some mis-spellings and strange punctuation. We try to catch these before posting, but sometimes errors sneak in.

Sarah	Welcome to Clued in Mystery. I’m Sarah.
Brook	And I’m Brook, and we both love mystery.
Sarah	Hi, Brook.
Brook	Hi, Sarah. Today we’re going to expand on our series of Golden Age authors.
Sarah	That’s right. We’re going to be discussing Ronald Knox, who was one of the founders of The Detection Club. Brook, how much do you know about Mr. Knox?
Brook	Before preparing for this episode, I knew virtually nothing except that he was the ah creator of the Ten Commandments of Mystery Fiction and that is basically where my knowledge ended. And it’s been really interesting learning about him.
Sarah	I agree. Fascinating man with a fascinating life. And I’ll just begin with a little bio on him. While his name may not be familiar with many mystery fans, Ronald Arbuthnott Knox’s impact on the mystery genre is significant. His fiction bibliography is relatively short by most standards, with only six novels and three short stories, as well as a few collaborations with other authors.
Sarah	But he is credited with articulating the Ten Commandments of Detective Fiction and was a pioneer of Sherlockian studies. In honor of his 10 rules, I thought we could discuss 10 facts about him. So, the first is that he was born February 17, 1888 in Kibworth, Leicestershire, where his father held a post in the Anglican Church. He was the youngest of six children.
Sarah	Second, his family was incredibly accomplished. His father and grandfather were Anglican bishops. His eldest brother was an author and editor of Punch magazine. Another brother was a code breaker during both of the World Wars. One of his sisters was an author of 25 books, and his niece won the Booker Prize.
Brook	I just want to jump in, Sarah. What an amazing family. Like I I don’t know what it would be like to be surrounded by all that.
Sarah	Well, I think he would feel some pressure to be pretty high achieving.
Brook	Absolutely.
Sarah	Number three, he was very well educated. He studied at Eton and Oxford, where he received several scholarships for his academic achievements. He returned to Oxford as a chaplain first while he was an Anglican priest, and then again after he converted to Catholicism.
Sarah	Four, the First World War influenced his decision to convert. When it broke out, he was an Anglican priest. Shortly after it finished, and he had lost many of his friends to the war, he was ordained as a Catholic one. Later in his life, he would work with the Pope.
Sarah	Five. Knox was a pioneer in Sherlock Holmes studies with his 1912 article “Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes”. The article analyzes several themes in Doyle’s work, organizes several Holmes pieces in chronological order, and offers a biography of the detective. Knox had carefully studied his subject and his admiration was lifelong.
Sarah	His mystery, The Viaduct Murders, includes several references to the detective and in 1947 Strand Magazine published a short story featuring Holmes written by Knox.
Sarah	Six, he enjoyed puzzles and wordplay. He published A Book of Acrostics in 1924 and his mystery, The Viaduct Murder, features a code. According to Martin Edwards, Knox also worked with his code-breaking brother during the First World War.
Sarah	Seven, his crime writing wasn’t necessarily religious, but it does feature references that are inspired by religious text. He also wrote extensively on religion, though eventually his bishop asked him to cease crime writing because it wasn’t appropriate. ah It wasn’t an appropriate activity for a priest.
Brook	Interesting.
Sarah	Yeah, there’s a story actually that he had he had a close friendship with a woman and ah they must have been traveling together. She did not like his fifth book and threw it over a cruise ship like ledge. um And then he didn’t write anything more from that. I guess that criticism was just you enough.
Brook	One bad review.
Sarah	Yeah, yeah, coupled with being told, like, this is not appropriate for the for the work that you do to be to be writing crime fiction.
Sarah	I do think it’s a shame that he was advised by another person in the Catholic Church to stop writing because, pardon me, because according to his biography written by Evelyn Waugh and he’s speaking here about his detective books. “Ronald regarded these books, as he did his acrostics, as intellectual exercises, a game between writer and reader in which a problem was precisely stated and elaborately disguised. He was not seeking to write novels. He had no concern with the passions of the murderer, the terror of the victim, or the moral enormity of the crime. He eschewed psychology, violence, the occult, and the macabre.”
Sarah	I think that perhaps that official in the Catholic Church maybe just didn’t understand what Ronald Knox was trying to do.
Brook	And, you know, ah crime fiction authors in general, because I don’t think by and large any of them or us are that interested in the murderer or, you know, the crime, it’s the it’s the puzzle and the challenge to figure out that puzzle. And um I think that summed it up so well.
Sarah	He inspired Orson Welles’ work, War of the Worlds. In 1926, he performed a solo radio broadcast where he spoke of a revelation occurring in London. The broadcast included very realistic sounding sound effects and caused some panic among listeners because of the, sorry, and caused some panic among listeners because of the political climate at the time.
Sarah	Number nine, he participated in the Detection Club’s first round robin mystery. In 1930, he, along with five other members of the Detection Club, read a mystery that they penned together “Behind the Screen” aired on six consecutive Sundays, each section read by its author.
Sarah	And finally, number 10, Ronald Knox died of cancer on August 24th, 1957.
Brook	Sarah, that was such a fun way to learn about Ronald Knox. Um, as you said at the top in honor of his Ten Commandments of Detection Fiction. So thank you for sharing that. Um, one of the things that jumped out at me is that he is sort of the first Sherlockian and what a giant realm of Sherlockians we still have to this day. And and he sort of kicked that off, didn’t he?
Sarah	Yeah, so his his um essay, it was it was published, I think, in 1912. But I think he actually ah read it at a couple of public gatherings in 1911. And Arthur Conan Doyle expressed surprise, I think, that someone would i take the time to analyze his work in that way. Because if you remember, Arthur Conan Doyle didn’t He didn’t really love his Sherlock work.
Sarah	He kind of did it because it paid the bills, but it it wasn’t his his passion. um And so, yeah, I think he was a bit surprised that someone took his work so seriously, ah but Knox did. And as you say, he really kicked off decades’ worth of of study of this amazing character.
Brook	Yeah. And one point that I read is in some of these essays he wrote on Sherlock Holmes and Watson, he treated them as if they were actual people. And I remember that we talked about the fact that there were people in that time period who assumed that Sherlock Holmes was real. And I I just wonder how much that um work contributed to those ideas that you could go to that address and that’s where Sherlock Holmes worked, you know?
Sarah	We’ll include a link to the article in the show notes because it is worth reading. It’s ah it’s quite a detailed analysis of the um the character.
Brook	That’s wonderful.
Brook	So this radio hoax, I am fascinated by this because he, as you said, they had, let me see.
Brook	I’m fascinated by the radio hoax, because it was so realistic and he reported that there had been the hanging of several people, that there was quote unquote revolution in London, the Houses of Parliament and the clock tower had been destroyed.
Brook	It’s no wonder that he created panic. And then I also read that a subsequent snowstorm meant that the newspapers couldn’t get out immediately, which caused people to believe that it was because of the revolution and and that they weren’t getting the news, but it also prevented them from hearing that this was just a satirical hoax.
Brook	But isn’t it interesting that a priest would kind of be willing to do this controversial, um, I mean, it was a lie, right? But it was, I’m sure he had a good reason for this. I’m sure it had a message behind it because that’s kind of what these things do, but ah just super interesting that he was willing to go that far.
Sarah	Yeah, and as you say, like I think his intention was that it was satire, right?
Brook	Yes.
Sarah	He wasn’t, um I think the difference with ah War of the Worlds is I’m not sure that it was intended to be set or it was meant to be entertainment for sure, but um you know I think that panic that resulted from that, I think Welles kind of enjoyed that.
Brook	Yes. Mm-hmm.
Sarah	But I got the impression that Ronald Knox was a pretty playful kind of man and that you know I can just imagine him really enjoying the experience of performing that broadcast because he did all of the sound effects with you know the explosions and you know crushing up the paper and stomping on things to to you know simulate this revolution that he was reporting that had happened. And then I think he just like went off and had dinner and and kind of didn’t realize what he had created. um So i you know i I’m sure he didn’t he didn’t set out to create the panic that ah that it created.
Brook	Right. I think your um observation that he was playful is 100 percent true. And I didn’t fully appreciate because I, as I said, did not know about Ronald Knox before.
Brook	I didn’t appreciate that a priest was who wrote the Ten Commandments of Mystery Fiction and then knowing that he enjoyed this kind of satirical um twist on things. I think that we can look at that list and be quite sure that he never meant for it to be taken, you know, as the gospel, so to speak. And there are a lot of people who misunderstand that. This was meant to be facetious and playful and sort of um maybe given a wink and a nod to all his fellow ah mystery authors.
Sarah	I think you’re absolutely correct, Brook. And he wasn’t the first person who tried to create a set of rules or structure around detective fiction. I think there were a couple of other attempts, but the fact that he framed it as the Ten Commandments and, you know, probably the fact that he was a priest. And I think he was quite well known for his religious writing as well.
Brook	Mm hmm.
Sarah	lended it some credibility and and um so his work became kind of that rules of detective fiction that um that we talk about. But I think you’re right. I think he, ah what again, wasn’t intending for people to read those and follow them to the tee. I think it was really just like, you know, as you say, nodding to some of his contemporaries, because I think he, you know, spent a fair amount of time with ah the other members of the detection club. Certainly they um wrote together you know in multiple instances. they And they did that um that BBC production that I talked about. So I can imagine that he he enjoyed spending time with them. And so it was just a way um to acknowledge them and ah acknowledge the work that they were doing.
Brook	Mm hmm.  You know, one member of the club that he was especially close to, and it makes great sense, is G.K. Chesterton. ah They were both ah theologians. ah They both wrote a lot of religious you know work, essays, articles. And then, of course, they were both mystery authors. And I just find that that friendship so fascinating. And I would love to have been a fly on the wall ah you know in their conversations. It seems that they were good friends. And Chesterton actually spoke at Knox’s funeral in 1957.
Sarah	Oh, I didn’t know that, but that makes complete sense. So, one of the detection club members that he, I think, butted heads with was Dorothy L. Sayers. ah there I saw a couple of references to just some tension between them.
Sarah	Dorothy L. Sayers was one of the detection club members who participated in that BBC production “Behind the Screen”. And I think they didn’t necessarily agree on the direction that that was supposed to take. And I think there were some other instances where they just ah didn’t agree, whether it was on the genre or or um you know other things um I’m not entirely sure, but ah there were a couple of references to their um so that tension, which had me thinking that you know it was probably pretty significant if it made it made its way into his biographies now.
Brook	Oh, that’s something to think about, right? We imagine that, “oh, they were just all a band of friends”, but anytime you get get a big group together, there’s going to be kind of those, um, you know, ruffled feathers one way or another. So it’s fun to think about the ones who got along very well. And then there were probably others that didn’t.
Brook	So Sarah, did you do any reading of Ronald Knox’s work in preparation for the show?
Sarah	I did. So I read a couple of things. I read a couple of his short stories. So the Sherlock pastiche that was written in 1947, I read that. And then I also read The Viaduct Murder, which I had to chuckle because ah they At the end of the book, there’s this final chapter and there’s a little note to the reader saying, if you feel like the book has been long enough, you don’t have to read this chapter. And so I think that’s just evidence of kind of how playful he was, right?
Sarah	I also read one of his short stories. The works that I didn’t read, they all featured an investigator, an insurance investigator. And so he did have a sleuth um who featured in most of his writing, but I didn’t actually read any of ah those works. I found it actually pretty hard to get my hands on his stuff.
Brook	um I did. I read one of the Miles Bredon ah stories. I was really hooked when I heard that he was an insurance company private detective, because ah those of you who remember that I love Kinsey Milhone, who is Sue Grafton’s sleuth, also started her career as an insurance company PI. So I was like, okay, I got to read one of these.
Brook	I was able to get some of the eBooks on Amazon fairly inexpensive. So if if you’re somebody who reads on the Kindle, you can probably get some of his stuff there for just inexpensive. It looks like they’re um on the public domain now. um But I read The Footsteps at the Loch. um And again, as you said, he talks to the reader. um i don’t I didn’t ah get to a chapter that said, you know, you can avoid this one. But he does talk to the reader quite often in the story um and sort of comments on um the ways of detection fiction, which I thought was very, very cute.
Brook	I think where the story really shined for me was in the dialogue. Miles Breeden is married to Angela. And their conversations back and forth is that very witty banter. But they also work out the case together aloud. And so I found that that was like a really great way to follow what is very and a very intricate story, which we see time and time again in Golden Age fiction. ah But it was helpful that it was happening in dialogue and i it seemed to stick with me better. I will mention that there’s a character in this story called Mr. Quirk and he’s an American who has come over and he wants to help solve the crime because he is a Detective Society of America member.
Brook	And he’s been um He’s been given the assignment to write his own mystery by the club, so he’s very interested in learning more about a true crime. um and There’s also a code in this story, so I think we can um learn that Knox really liked to use his code-breaking ah skills in his stories.
Sarah	Well, that sounds like a really great read, Brook, so I’ll see if I can track that down. I will say, in The Viaduct Murder, um there, I hope I’m not giving anything away, but there was a secret passage which I thought ah was pretty funny given the set of rules that he created.
Brook	But only one, I hope.
Sarah	Yes, I think there was only one. So I did find that book a little bit hard to follow. It’s you know it’s it’s close to 100 years old. um And the the writing and the dialogue is older, but I i did enjoy it.
Brook	Yeah, that’s great.
Sarah	OK. Well, Brook, it was a lot of fun talking about and learning about Ronald Knox this week. ah I hope readers hope listeners enjoyed the conversation. You mentioned some of his work being in the public domain. I think listeners can find his work on Project Gutenberg if they’re looking for ah ebook versions.
Sarah	um but Sorry, I don’t know what else I was going to say. and We will include links to the books that we talked about and the ones that are on the public domain as well. So listeners can go in and read some Ronald Knox on their own.
Brook	Yes, it’s been so good learning more about another Golden Age author, and I hope you enjoyed it today too, listeners. Thanks for joining us on Clued in Mystery. I’m Brook.
Sarah	And I’m Sarah, and we both love mystery.