Hands up!
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Hands up! (Original English title: The Gunner ) is a detective novel by the British writer Edgar Wallace from 1928. The focus of the novel is the relationship between businessman Luke Maddison and his wife Margaret and the criminal Gunner Haynes' vengeance against Danton Morell, who put him in prison brought.
content
General and formal structure
The novel Hands up! Like all Edgar Wallace crime novels, it is fictional throughout. In the German pocket thriller edition, it comprises 158 pages and is divided into 23 consecutively numbered chapters that have no title of their own. The entire book is rendered in the past tense from the position of an omniscient narrator. The story takes place in London , with the specific locations changing depending on the people viewed. The main strands of the plot accompany the various protagonists, above all the businessman Luke Maddison, his fiancée and later wife Margaret Leferre or Maddison, Danton Morell, the Gunner Haynes as well as the Commissioner Bird and the reporter Mary Bolfort.
action
The relationship between Luke Maddison and his fiancée and future wife Margaret Leferre is at the center of the story. Margaret is influenced by the cheater Danton Morell and blames her husband for the alleged suicide of her brother Rex. With this in mind, she agrees to the wedding, but persuades Luke beforehand to transfer all of his assets over to her. After the wedding, she confronts him with the fact that she no longer wants to have anything to do with him, and he withdraws penniless to the city. He was seriously wounded when he met some petty criminals and was taken to hospital as a stranger. After his release he also ends up in the underworld of London due to a mix-up and unwittingly takes part in a jewel theft. When the mix-up is revealed, he tries to flee and is rescued by Gunner Haynes shortly before he is about to be drowned in the Thames .
Haynes himself is on a campaign of revenge against Danton Morell, who put him in prison years ago. He supports Maddison and finally clears up the misunderstanding about the fake farewell letter from Margaret's brother.
Publication and reception
The novel The Gunner was first published in 1928 under the name The Children Of The Poor in Home Chat magazine from March 31 to May 19, 1928 in 8 parts and in Detective Story Magazine from September 1 to October 6, 1928 in six parts . In 1929 it was published as a detective novel by the publisher Hutchinson & Co. in London and was subsequently translated into several languages like most of Edgar Wallace's novels. In Germany the novel was published as a German first edition and translation by Friedrich Pütsch in 1929 by Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag in Leipzig. In the series "Goldmann Taschenkrimi" (later known as Rote Krimis) it appeared from 1950 with the issue number 13, later several new editions and editions of the novel were published by Goldmann and Bertelsmann Verlag. As part of the anniversary edition "30 years of red crime novels" in 1982, the book was published as volume 34 in a revision by Tony Westermayr .
expenditure
- The Gunner. John Long, London 1928
- The Gunner. Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1929
- Selection of German-language editions
- Hands up !. Translated into German by Friedrich Pütsch. Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag, Leipzig undated [1928]
- Hands up !. Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag Munich, 1950 (Goldmann Taschenkrimi 13)
- Hands up !. Bertelsmann Verlag Gütersloh, 1960
- Hands up! 16th edition (anniversary edition 30 years of Rote Krimis), Volume 34, Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag, Munich 1982
Web links
- The Gunner , full English text in Project Gutenberg Australia
- Hands up! , Full text of the translation by Friedrich Pütsch in the Gutenberg project
supporting documents
- ^ The Gunner , English full text in Project Gutenberg Australia; accessed on February 13, 2017.