The man who knew too much

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The man who knew too much (Engl. The Man Who Knew Too Much ) is a collection of eight crime stories of Gilbert Keith Chesterton . They first appeared in magazines from 1920 to 1922, and in book form for the first time in 1922 by the London publisher Cassell & Co. “In his instinct and with his gift for understanding the secret motives of the perpetrator, he is related to the unforgettable Father Brown . Like him, he solves his cases in a highly unconventional way and has his own way of dealing with his knowledge. ”In each story, amateur detective Horne Fisher deals with a different strange mystery - the disappearance of an invaluable coin, the pursuit of an Irish Freedom Fighter , an eccentric rich man who dies while obsessed with fishing, another dies while skating, and a statue crushing his own uncle.

background

Cassell's Magazine. Cover of the issue of -1903

Chesterton wrote the stories about Horne Fisher alongside his humorous Father Brown stories, initially as individual crime stories for various magazines. They appeared between April 1920 and October 1922 in the American Harper's Magazine and time-shifted in the British magazines Cassell's Magazine of Fiction and Storyteller ; the latter had Chesterton's stories about Father Brown in its program since 1910 . Chesterton has rounded off the previously individually published stories with a final episode to indicate a novel-like line: "With every adventure, a journalist gains new knowledge that will lead to a magazine," wrote Elmar Schenkel in the afterword of the new edition; "Horne Fisher, whose growing disillusionment leads to death, goes through a similar development." When the stories appeared in book form in 1922, "they received only moderate criticism."

The stories about Horne Fisher and Howard Marsh

The face in the target ( The Face in the Target )

While hiking near a country estate he intends to visit soon, the aspiring journalist and social critic Howard Marsh meets the young Horne Fisher. While they are talking, they observe a car accident in a sloping location nearby and can only determine the death of the occupant. Then they go in search of the place from which the driver of the car must have come. They discover a target on which bullets form a face. Then they get into a hunting party around the famous big game hunter Lord Burke; The group also includes a certain Jenkins, whose shooting skills are generally considered poor. With a clumsy trick - he traces the contours of the face on the target with phosphorus - it finally becomes clear to Fisher that only Jenkins could be the culprit, a man who had only faked his inability to shoot and who had committed the murder.

But the police come to the conclusion in their investigations that the driver of the car died an accidental death. “But you know it's not true,” replied his friend Marsh, and Horne replied, “I told you I know too much. [...] I know that - and many other things. I know the environment and how the whole thing is going. "

The prince, who could make himself invisible ( The Vanishing Prince )

The Hocq Tower in Jersey, similar to the round tower described by Chesterton

While searching for the Irish freedom fighter Michael O'Neill, Horne Fischer, together with several police officers and a detective named Hooker Wilson, goes in search of the fugitive rebel. They surround an old tower and are spread out in such a way that Michael O'Neill cannot escape. When intruding, one policeman is killed in an explosion, another is fatally injured if he falls off the ladder. When looking for the culprit, you discover that the person you are looking for cannot be found in the tower. In fact, Wilson committed the murders. Then he tries to blame the rebel for the two murders to make sure he gets hanged. However, Horne can prove that Hooker Wilson triggered the explosion when he entered. The rebel, otherwise a gentleman , has meanwhile arrived; he is furious and shoots Wilson, but only wounds him. However, Fisher is forced to arrest Michael.

Chesterton lets his hero sum up: Wilson got on his feet and we were able to persuade him to retire. However, we had to give this nefarious murderer a pension that was louder than anything any hero fighting for England has ever received. I was able to save Michael from the worst, but we had to send this completely innocent man to prison for a crime we knew he hadn't committed; only later could we help him to escape secretly.

The soul of a student ( The Soul of the Schoolboy )

The student Summers Minor goes on a tour of London with his uncle, Reverend Thomas Twyford, to see sights. The uncle suggested that he go to the repository of a valuable relic, the St. Paul's penny . They meet another visitor, a mysterious magician. At the entrance, visitors have to empty their pockets for security reasons; the boy hands over a piece of string and a horseshoe magnet, the contents of his trouser pocket. A Colonel Morris is in charge of the treasury; Custodian and Supreme Leader a Mr. Symon. When the boy in the exhibition room, in which St. Paul's penny is in an open-topped display case, accidentally pulls a piece of wire hanging down, it suddenly becomes dark in the room. Soon afterwards the boy leaves through a ventilation shaft. When it gets light again, Morris appears with two new visitors; it's Horne Fisher and Howard Marsh. After the magician is suspected of having stolen the coin, Horne can prove; that Overseer Morris stole St. Paul's Penny after the string and the toy magnet awakened the "student soul" in him. During the supervision, he took the nephew's possessions to steal the penny.

The bottomless wells ( The Bottomless Well )

In the Middle East, Horne Fisher is visiting an English club when General Hastings dies. The authorities 'suspicions are centered on the rival Boyle, who has an affair with Hastings' young wife. Horne Fisher can prove that Hastings, when trying to eliminate Boyle with poison in the coffee, accidentally exchanged the cups on the rotating bookshelves and died himself the moment he tried to push Boyle into the "bottomless well". In order to protect the interests of the Empire, the case is covered up by the colonial authorities.

The hole in the wall ( The Hole in the Wall )

Horne Fisher is visiting Lord Bulwer 's Prior's Park estate . Also invited are a lawyer and hobby antiquarian from London named James Haddow and Leonard Crane, a businessman and architect. Crane wants to marry Lord Blumer's sister and at this meeting seeks a discussion with the nobleman, who rejects this morganatic connection. When Fischer heard the noises of a fight at night and the search for Lord Bulwer was unsuccessful, the suspicion of having murdered him first fell on Crane, especially since he had fought a sword fight with Lord Bulwer in historical clothing the day before. But Fisher meanwhile sifted through historical sources and was able to determine that Prior's Park was actually a monastery that an ancestor of the Lord had wrested from the clergy in the Tudor period . That ancestor had murdered the last abbot who had defended himself and sunk it in a deep well in front of the monastery building. In order to erase the historical references, this fountain was hidden with an artificial pond and an ominous Mister Prior was invented, who is said to have owned the property. Haddow had revealed this secret and, as a late revenge on the arrogant nobleman, sawed the ice over this point in the pond the night before his departure, in which Lord Bulwer fell while skating the next day.

The Tick of the angler ( The Fad of the Fisherman )

Horne Fisher and Howard Marsh travel independently to a country estate where the Prime Minister is staying. Fisher has known him since childhood; Marsh is now a respected journalist. On his arrival in a rowboat, Marsh observes the ominous disappearance of a man who pulls himself onto a bridge from an oncoming boat.

GK Chesterton 1915

Meanwhile, Horne Marsh had arrived at the country estate. In the garden he meets the host's nephew and private secretary, James Bullen, known as Bunker . He then meets the Duke of Westmoreland and the Crown Attorney Sir John Harker. The landlord himself, the seedy newspaper magnate Sir Isaac Hook, is meanwhile sitting on the riverside fishing. At dinner that evening, Fisher meets Prime Minister Lord Merivale, who is leaving the next morning to give an important speech on the current foreign policy crisis.

Howard Marsh arrives in the afternoon. He brings a newspaper with him, in which parts of the speech are printed, which causes an uproar; it is considered whether Sir Isaac should be disturbed to inform him. The eccentric duke returns helpless from an attempt to talk to the nobleman. Thereupon those present find Sir Isaac Hook's death by strangulation. While Crown Attorney Harker briskly takes hold of the preliminary investigation, the nephew collapses for fear of being the main suspect. Meanwhile, while he is destroying unpleasant papers, Harker finds a threatening letter addressed to Hook in which a Hugo threatened him with death. In the description of that man, a former servant of the landlord, Marsh recognizes the stranger on the boat.

Fisher soon realizes that the fugitive Hugo could not have committed the murder, because he concludes that Hook must have been murdered the night before. All who had allegedly seen the landlord alive were silent out of fear of being suspected themselves. For Fisher there is only one possible perpetrator, the premier who left that morning. But its political mission, in which a war is prevented, is far more important than the death of a "tormentor".

The fool of the family ( The Temple of Silence )

For Howard Marsh it appears that he believes he knows Fisher in the highest circles, but not his own family. Eventually he learns that his friend has a brother, the wealthy and influential Sir Henry Harland Fisher, and another brother, Ashton Fisher, who lives in India. When, while visiting Sir Henry Howard Marsh, he saw Horne Fisher being treated condescendingly by his brother, Horne explained to him that he was "the fool of the family". In politics he was a failure, says Fisher, and then tells his friend how it happened.

When he was young, his brother, then called Harry, was the Secretary of State to the Secretary of State ; Lord Saltoun. At a family celebration, at which Saltoun is also present, there is a scandal when Horne vehemently criticizes the political situation of the small landowners. While his brother thinks ironically that he could found a peasant party, Lord Saltoun shows understanding for Hornes views.

Surprisingly for everyone, Horne accepts his brother's proposal. He is running and campaigning with Harry in Somerset ; He is very successful because he is the only one who addresses the problems of the rural population. Fisher also investigates the machinations of the shady landowner Sir Francis Verner, who is said to have come to his property under dubious circumstances. In town, Horne Fisher meets his opponent from the Reform Party, the young Eric Hughes and his campaign manager Elijah Gryce. He follows Gryce for a while, until he approaches him and asks for a conversation. During the course of the interview, Fisher suggests withdrawing his candidacy if they can agree on a common fight against MP Verner, provided that the allegations against the squire are correct. Gryce is open to Fisher's idea and I am sure that the allegations are proven. When Fisher asks him to speak out these truths openly during the election campaign, Gryce becomes evasive and uses general empty phrases.

The garden temple Kew Gardens in the London borough of Kew is similar to the complex described by Chesterton

On his way, Fisher finally passes the aforementioned Verners manor. After entering the spacious area through a hole in the wall, he observed a poacher and turned him red-handed . On a peninsula in the lake of the country estate, on which there is also a mysterious garden temple. He has no intention of betraying him, Horne assures him. He learns from the poacher named Long John that Verner's property originally belonged to his family. After letting the man go, he enters Verner's house and confronts the owner; he asks him to give up his parliamentary seat, which brusquely rejects this.

At night, Fisher returns to the peninsula to get inside the temple. Shortly before he can enter, several men jump from the surrounding trees, beat him up and drag him into the interior of the temple. When they leave the room, they do not realize that they have accidentally locked the last of their group in. He knocks on the door, but remains silent. Fisher concludes that he knows the man. His guesswork is interrupted by a thunderstorm; as a flash of lightning illuminates the night sky, he recognizes his brother Harry. First, Horne tells him his speculations about the temple, which is furnished like a boudoir . Hawker, the previous owner, was a bigamist and had his first wife locked up. A boy was born there who is now a poacher on the premises and claims his rights. Hawker married a Jewish woman; Verner discovered the secret and blackmailed Hawker.

When Horne then asks his brother why he should be kidnapped, he learns that he was the subject of a political intrigue ; his candidacy should only serve to split the reform party and help Verner to succeed, since important state affairs are at stake. When Horne comes to the end of his story, he and your friend enter a public park with a lake. He has his residence in the temple on the peninsula. Although he won the election, he never got into parliament. Now his life is playing out in seclusion on this peninsula.

Revenge of the ropes ( The Vengeance of the statue )

In the final episode, Horne Fisher meets his friend one last time; Howard Marsh is now an avid journalist with the chance to publish an independent newspaper. Hopes at the meeting to be able to get the old friend to cooperate in order to uncover political grievances. But Fisher does not accept the offer; he was too closely related to the heads of the state, and he was proud of his family. As a counter-proposal, he invites his friend to a meeting of his secret gentlemen's club in Kent to give him the opportunity to form his own opinion about Fisher's political intentions. Once there, Marsh meets a group of old men, the Chancellor of the Exchequer Lord James Herries, Sir David Archer, the Foreign Secretary and Fisher's uncle, the colorless country noble Horne Hewitt, who was entrusted with a secret foreign policy mission. Also present is a police officer named Dr. Prince, former police doctor and now seconded as the group's bodyguard. Fisher tells his friend that he wants to prevent anyone in the group from trying to get his uncle's secret papers; he will prevent this from succeeding.

The Britannia in Plymouth

The next morning everyone learns that Hewitt is murdered under a statue in the garden. Dr. Prince assumes that the killer overthrew the statue on the man. It remains a mystery, however, how it could have been possible to take off Hewitt's skirt beforehand; there is also little blood on Hewitt's sword. During the investigation, Fisher takes his friend aside, moves away from the group, and confesses that he killed his uncle because he found out that Hewitt himself was the spy. After Fisher admitted there was a second sword, Marsh concludes that Hewitt died in a duel and that Fisher experienced a scratch on his face. So the last story about Horne Fisher comes to a patriotically good end when the worst traitor to the fatherland is found by means of a falling Britannia statue. The story ends with Fisher going to the sea with Marsh and, after saying goodbye to his friend, blowing himself up with a simple missile.

The literary characters of Horne Fisher and Howard Marsh

"Anyone who wants to dismiss Chesterton for a harmless Catholic humorist (or raise it to one) will bite granite [...] for the first time with this work," said Elmar Schenkel. For various reasons , the man who knew too much represents “a journey into the underworld”, “which at the same time illuminates the heights of politics.” The stories make it clear that Horne Fisher “is a modern Hamlet who cannot act and may. He knows a lot, too much, and that's why his hands are tied. If he were to name the culprits, the enemy could obtain state secrets , civil war could break out or the British Empire could collapse. Horne Fisher is a legacy of these uncertain times, but a paralyzed detective, one who has become paranoid through his knowledge . [...] It is the reason of state , there are ethical reasons that prohibit treason or want to prevent greater calamities by concealing corruption and immorality in the highest circles. "

"All master detectives of the great tradition are inevitably variants and at the same time counter-designs to Sherlock Holmes ", wrote Werner von Koppenfels; "And the apparently lethargic Horne Fisher, prematurely bald, with worry lines, sleepy lids and a defeatist, drooping mustache," is one of the most original types in his succession. Fisher's solutions are always "highly paradoxical and brilliant, but scandalously they remain without consequences for the villains, because what he reveals must be covered up again immediately."

Herbert Fisher

Schenkel suspects that Chesterton wanted to portray a real role model with Horne Fisher; whose last name suggests Herbert Albert Laurens Fisher (1861-1940), who was not only the cousin of Virginia Woolf , but also a historian and education minister, sat on the advisory committee of the king and was in high circles. Another possible role model is the writer Maurice Baring , who was Chesterton lifelong friends, came from the Barings banking family and was "something like the fool of the family".

Chesterton connoisseur Dale Ahlquist, chairman of the American Chesterton Society , disagrees with such speculations; Horne Fisher would fit Baring's physical description, he was also a respected member of the upper class and “he seems to know everyone and everything. The similarity ends there, however. Just as Father Brown is not exactly Father John O'Connor, neither is Horne Fisher exactly Maurice Baring. Either way, the real Baring was a charming, sociable gentleman who knew how to laugh and wasn't afraid to look ridiculous while balancing a full wine glass on his bald head at social gatherings. Horne Fisher is clearly lacking in charm and humor. ”According to Ahlquist, one should rather neglect the baring aspect and focus on how much Chesterton is in the character Horne Fisher ; like Fisher, the author had "discovered how dark and how terrible crimes can be implicated in the law". Ahlquist asks the (hypothetical) question of whether Fisher is simply his mouthpiece , "to be the things he wants to say without hesitation, to be a catharsis for his frustration with the anchored and corrupt system." Ahlquist points out that Chesterton had to see his beloved brother in court a few years earlier when he was caught in a business and political conspiracy that was never punished. Still, Fisher said little of Chesterton's attitudes; “Horne Fisher is joyless. He's a pessimist. And he's backbone. There is no way to maintain such a description of Gilbert Keith Chesterton. Unlike Fisher, Chesterton was not afraid to call for justice no matter what the cost. Rather, he hoped to reach an audience in humanity that knew too little. "

Regarding the protagonist's “too much knowledge”, Ahlquist quotes a passage in which, in awe of Fisher's understanding of the facts, someone else tells him:

"Fisher, I should say that what you don't know is not worth knowing."
"You're wrong," replies Fisher with a very unusual suddenness and even bitterness. "I know it's not worth being informed about."

In Ahlquist's opinion, Horne Fisher would be much happier if he knew less than the other person. “He is burdened with the burden of knowing the“ dark side of things ”, the stinking corruption in the heights of wealth and power. He drags himself lazily from one amazing, horrific event to the next, pulling corpses out of cars and wells, and summarizing the situation with cool contempt. But he can never report the crimes he exposes because the governments fall, the reputation is ruined, or the aristocrats squirm. ”So the reader of Horne Fisher could learn the truth about what happened, but not get justice. That is because Fisher has the problem of being an complicit member of the class of criminal rulers himself.

Dr. Watson (left) and Sherlock Holmes in a portrayal by Sidney Paget

Ahlquist points out that Chesterton's book should not be viewed as a novel but as a collection of independent stories. Nevertheless, a full draw in the course of the eight stories Development of the second character of Fischer's buddy, the journalist Howard Marsh, who in these stories, Watson play role. “Newspaper journalists in Chesterton's day had a completely wrong idea of ​​the brilliant virtues of the rich and powerful,” says Ahlquist, “but thanks to his collaboration with Fisher, March learns the tainted truth. And in the end he beats up Fisher for inaction. ”Ahlquist believes that Marsh is saying what the reader has always wanted to say. But then Fisher turn the tables (and with it the reader) by defending his family and circle. "It's a humble, thoroughly Christian and devout, and thought-provoking defense":

“ Did you really believe that there is only evil at the bottom of your heart? That I found nothing but filth in the deep sea in which Providence cast me? You can rely on it: You only recognize the best in people when you know the worst about them. [...] I tell you that one thing is as true for these rich fools and crooks as it is for the poorest mugger and pickpocket: that only God knows how good they have tried to be. God alone knows what conscience can survive or how someone who has lost his honor will still try to save his soul . "

Aspects of satire and humor

Even the first story about Horne Fisher and Howard Marsh - The Face in the Target - is a story that is somewhat different from the usual crime story, in which crimes, evidence, the detective's judgment and explanations follow one another - neither March nor we are confident about Fisher's art of convicting the perpetrator. rather, the first story is "another variant of the theme of murderer as an artist."

"The story begins in a jumble of tales about a name that are both new and legendary," Chesterton introduced the reader to The Vanishing Prince . In a first episode, Michael escapes discovery by standing in the field as a scarecrow , while the short-sighted policeman comes by rather impatiently and does not discover him. The Vanishing Prince is thus related to the mystery stories in Chesterton's work, similar to his stories The Man Who Shot the Fox , The Five of Swords, The Noticeable Conduct of Professor Chadd, The Moderate Murderer and The Tower of Treason .

Caricature by: Carl Gustaf Johannes Laurin, 1910

"What an inversion means, Chesterton makes particularly clear in The Soul of the Schoolboy ", wrote Rudolf Matthias Fabritius about the comic in GK Chesterton's short story. In this tale an uncle and his nephew, a schoolboy, take a trip around London. “However, it is not the uncle who is highlighted as the more important person, but the young nephew, who is in charge of the reins of this venture. The beginning of The Hole in the Wall also shows elements of comedy , when not only the author's predilection for polysemy of the same word, but also homonymy shows: 'Lord Bulmer in The Hole in the Wall introduces an architect to an archaeologist because architect and archeologist have the same sound community. In an ironic and funny way, Chesterton then lets the word pairs diplomatist - dipsomaniac and rationcinator - rat-catcher follow. "

In several stories in The Man, Who Knew Too Much, “we encounter politicians who are unsuitable for their office,” wrote Rudolf Matthias Fabritius in Das Komische in GK Chesterton's short story . “Their deficiency is more or less expressed in an appearance that is incongruent to normal.” For example, the finance minister in The Face in the Target has Major Bumpers' skull and, because of his facial expression, is strongly reminiscent of a parrot, “an association that is not very flattering for a statesman. “To others, the figure of the Prime Minister in The Venngeance of a Statue expresses “ a lack of 'life' and viability and therefore seems strange. ”( The Prime minister no longer looked a boy, though he still looked little like a baby ) .

Funny aspects also appear in other stories; "So in The Fad of the Fisherman we are introduced to a man who sits fishing all day and only leaves his post at sunset." This story is also full of mysterious events; at the same time “full of paradox, not least that murder actually frees a nation from corruption. This time the "big fish" that gets away is a blessing. "

"The comic appears greatly weakened in Sir David Archer, the foreign minister in The Vengeance of the Statue, " wrote Fabritius. “As a self-made man , Chesterton, who was critical of the English aristocracy , showed him more sympathy and therefore refrained from sharp caricaturing features. However, two unruly curls appear strange, which look like the antennae of a huge insect. "

reception

Caricature GK Chestertons from 1928 in Lions and Lambs

According to Dale Ahlquist (American Chesterton Society), the stories "are still great detective stories , each one on its own." The Hole in the Wall and The Vanishing Prince were some of the best crime stories Chesterton wrote. The Face in the Target is a nice example of Chesterton's most important contribution to the genre of the detective novel : “The idea of ​​fair play with the reader. All the clues are there, but the reader is still surprised. Thrillers succeed where other fictions fail because the aim is to find the truth. It is a satisfaction to solve the riddle, even if you don't like the answer. "

For Jürgen Kaube ( Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ), “Chesterton is one of the most wonderful writers of all time”. The apathetic detective Horne Fisher had to realize in his investigations in the milieu of the political upper class, "that morality obviously does not always seem to be the top priority and accordingly does not extradite the perpetrators convicted by him." The reviewer praises not only Chesterton's intellectual humor, but also the very impressive English landscape pictures, which are rather unusual for detective stories.

Werner von Koppenfels ( Neue Zürcher Zeitung ) objected that “these bizarre stories should not only alienate lovers of popular detective literature, but are also morally difficult to digest. Because the stories about the melancholy detective Horne Fisher, whose excellently solved cases are repeatedly covered up by a corrupt upper class, are not only shaped by Chesterton's conversion to Catholicism , but above all reveal the disappointment of their patriotic, once liberal author with the First World War. "For the reviewer, the xenophobic and anti-Semitic remarks made by the protagonist showed more the" flat propagandist "than the talented author."

Judith von Sternburg ( Frankfurter Rundschau ) also records the anti-German and anti-Jewish utterances of the aristocrat; she "does not let them spoil the joy of the stories that they entertained with oriental poisons, screams in the night and an often bizarre, but patriotic ending."

While according to Hugh Kenner factory Chesterton on the "View" on the "pictures that are in the stories, not the ideas" should pay attention, whether in The Man Who Knew Too Much , the blindness the real issue , says Elmar leg, " Looking away , covering up and deceiving , and that's why it teems with phenomena and hallucinations as forms of repression , that's why the detective isn't either." Horne Fisher is rather "a prisoner of his values "; therefore one could also read this book “as a study of not seeing, as stories about blindness in a society, presented by one of the most astute representatives, who of all things blinds his knowledge”.

Alfred Hitchcock obtained the film rights to The Man Who Knew Too Much in the early 1930s , but it was never made into a film. He liked the title, however, and since he owned the rights to it, he used it for the 1934 film of the same name and the 1956 remake .

The anti-Semitism charge

George Bernard Shaw , Hilaire Belloc and GK Chesterton

Werner von Koppenfels notes that Horne Fisher was "all too keen on the criminal upper class"; and that, in Chesterton's view, is "firmly in the hands of (Jewish) capital." When Horne Fisher's good friend, the Prime Minister, "uses a very symbolic way of eliminating the blackmailing financial magnate Sir Isaac Hook, the raison d'être of course demands strict Confidentiality. In doing so, it is made somewhat difficult for the reader not to feel something like secret satisfaction about the deed and its rectification ”. For Elmar Schenkel, the role model for Horne Fisher Barings and Chesterton's mutual friend, the Roamcier and journalist Hilaire Belloc , who had a great influence on Chesterton's anti-Jewish statements, is a possible role model for anti-Judaism .

In two episodes there are anti-Jewish and anti-capitalist allegations; In The Bottomless Well , in which a murder takes place on a British golf course in the Orient, Fisher explains on the one hand the need to conceal the real perpetrator, and on the other , condemned him to “let himself be a tirade against the enemies of the Empire, moneylenders” Jews «and» Yankee Jews «.” In The Fool of the Family he calls the German magnate Francis Verner (alias Franz Werner) a “dirty foreigner”. In no other fictional text, Elmar Schenkel wrote, "Chesterton expresses himself so explicitly, so brutally open, even so clumsy as here." Anti-Semitism is less casual with Chesterton than with Charles Dickens , HG Wells , Virginia Woolf or TS Eliot . “Because with him it forms part of his criticism of modernity ; he connects big business , plutocracy and multinational corporations with Judaism and advocates a Zionist solution because he regards the Jews as foreign bodies in Europe. ”“ It's bad enough that a gang of infernal Jews should plant us here, where there's no earthy English interest to serve, ans all hell beating up against us, simply because Nosey Zimmer has lent money to half the Cabinet. "

Bibliographical information

Editor's note

The book edition that appeared in the United States contained another story (unrelated to Horne Fisher), The Trees of Pride . The UK edition included three other short stories, The Garden of Smoke, The Five of Swords and The Tower of Treason .

First publications

  • The times refer to the publication in Haper's Magazine.
  • April 1920: The Face in the Target (vol. 140, April 1920, pp. 577-587)
  • August 1920: "II. The Vanishing Prince, A Story" (August 1920, pp. 320–330)
  • September 1920: "III. The Soul of the Schoolboy" (v. 141, Sept. 1920, pp. 512-521)
  • March 1921: "IV. The Bottomless Well" (v. 142, March 1921, pp. 504-514)
  • June 1921: "V. The Fad of the Fisherman" (June 1921, pp. 9-20)
  • October 1921: "VI. The Hole in the Wall" (v. 143, Oct. 1921, pp. 572-586)
  • May 1922: "VII. The Temple of Silence" (v. 144, May 1922, pp. 783–798)
  • June 1922: "The Vengeance of the Statue" (v. 145, June 1922, pp. 10–22)

Book editions

First editions
  • The Man Who Knew Too Much London: Cassell & Co. 1922.
  • The Man Who Knew Too Much New York: Harper & Brothers 1922.

German-language editions

  • The man who knew too much , translated by Clarisse Meitner . Munich, Musarion, 1925.
  • The man who knew too much , translated by Clarisse Meitner . Freiburg i. B., Basel, Vienna: Herder, 1960.
  • The man who knew too much - stories about a gentleman detective Munich, Zurich: Droemer / Knaur 1975. ISBN 978-3-426-00323-7 .
  • The man who knew too much. Crime stories. Manesse Verlag, Zurich 2011. New translation by Renate Orth-Guttmann, ISBN 978-3-7175-2228-7 ).

See also

Web links

Wikisource: The Man Who Knew Too Much  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Preface to GK Chesterton: The Man Who Knew Too Much - Stories About a Gentlemanly Detective . Knaur pocket books, Munich, Zurich: Droemer-Knaur, 1975
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Elmar Schenkel: Epilogue to: The man who knew too much. Crime stories. Manesse Verlag, Zurich 2011.
  3. ↑ a b c quoted from The Man Who Knew Too Much. Crime stories. Manesse Verlag, Zurich 2011, p. 288
  4. ↑ a b c Werner von Koppenfels: Hunter in the twilight. Neue Zürcher Zeitung , May 6, 2011, accessed on September 17, 2011 .
  5. ↑ a b c d e f The Man Who Knew Too Much at Chesterton.org
  6. ^ Sister Carol (AC) GK Chesterton: The Dynamic Classicist . Sundarlal Jain for] Motilal Banarsidass, 1971, p. 136
  7. ^ Robin W. Winks, Maureen Corrigan: Mystery and Suspense Writers: The Literature of Crime, Detection, and Espionage, Volume 1 . Scribner's Sons, 1998
  8. ^ Sister Carol (AC): GK Chesterton: The Dynamic Classicist . Motilal Banarsidass, 1971, p. 231
  9. ↑ See GK Chesteron: Seven Suspects . Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1990
  10. ↑ Rudolf Matthias Fabritius: The comical in the short story GK Chesterton's studies of English philology. New episode, ed. by Gerhard Müller-Schwefe and Friedrich Schubel. Tübingen: Niemeyer 1964, p. 157.
  11. ^ A b Rudolf Matthias Fabritius: The comical in the short story GK Chesterton's studies on English philology. New episode, ed. by Gerhard Müller-Schwefe and Friedrich Schubel. Tübingen: Niemeyer 1964, p. 65.
  12. ↑ The Dial, Volume 74 , edited by Francis Fisher Browne, Scofield Thayer, Waldo Ralph Browne. 1923, p. 518
  13. ^ Laird R. Blackwell: The Metaphysical Mysteries of GK Chesterton: A Critical Study of the Father Brown Stories. 2016
  14. ↑ Jügen Kaube: Review by GK Chesterton: The man who knew too much. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, October 20, 2011, accessed on June 30, 2019 .
  15. ↑ Judith von Sternburg: Review by GK Chesterton: The man who knew too much. Frankfurter Rundschau, July 13, 2011, accessed on June 30, 2019 .
  16. ↑ Brent Reid: Alfred Hitchcock Collectors' Guide: The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934). In: Brenton Film. November 19, 2019, accessed May 19, 2020 (UK English).
  17. ↑ Stephen Whitty: The Alfred Hitchcock Encyclopedia . Rowman & Littlefield, 2016, ISBN 978-1-4422-5160-1 ( google.de [accessed May 19, 2020]).
  18. ↑ Quoted from Simon Mayers: Chesterton's Jews: Stereotypes and Caricatures in the Literature and Journalism. , December 9, 2013
  19. ^ "The Face in the Target," in Harper's Magazine, vol. 140, April 1920 at unz.org.
  20. ↑ "The Vanishing Prince," in Harper's Magazine, August 1920.
  21. ^ "The Soul of the Schoolboy," in Harper's Magazine, Sept. 1920.
  22. ^ "The Bottomless Well," in Harper's Magazine, March 1921.
  23. ^ "The Fad of the Fisherman," in Harper's Magazine, June 1921.
  24. ^ "The Hole in the Wall," in Harper's Magazine, Oct. 1921.
  25. ^ "The Temple of Silence" not available in unz.org
  26. ↑ "The Vengeance of the Statue" in Harper's Magazine, June 1922.