Richard Gordon (Author)

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Richard Gordon was the pseudonym that the British surgeon and anesthetist Gordon Stanley Ostlere (born September 15, 1921 - † August 11, 2017 ) used as an author. As Richard Gordon, Ostlere has written numerous novels , screenplays for film and television as well as popular history reports, most of which deal with medicine . He is particularly known for a long line of humorous doctor novels , beginning with Doctor in the House (1952) and subsequent film, television, radio and stage adaptations .

Gordon studied at Selwyn College and St Bartholomew's Hospital . He worked as an anesthetist at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London and the Nuffield Department in Oxford. He later worked as a surgeon on a ship and was an associate editor of the British Medical Journal . He has published numerous specialist books under his own name such as Anesthetics for Medical Students (1949; re-edited in 1989 as Ostlere and Bryce-Smith's Anesthetics for Medical Students ), Anesthetics and the Patient (1949), and Trichlorethylene Anesthesia (1953). Together with Roger Bryce-Smith he wrote an anesthesia textbook.

In 1952 he ended his medical career and from then on devoted himself full-time to writing. The early doctoral novels set in the fictional St. Swithin, a teaching hospital in London, were funny and in part autobiographical; the later books focus more on erotic aspects. The novels were very successful in England as Penguin paperbacks in the 1960s and 1970s and in Germany as rororo paperbacks (especially as so-called linen spines ) from the 1950s to 1960s.

Doctor in the House , made into a film in 1954 (German title: Aber, Herr Doktor… ), became the most successful British film of the year. The author played in a nameless role as anesthetist, the main role Dirk Bogarde , as well as next year in Doctor at Sea (German title: Doktor Ahoi! ) With Brigitte Bardot . Further film adaptations of the doctor series followed.

Richard Gordon has also written articles for Punch magazine and published books on gardening , fishing, and cricket . Among the numerous other books that Gordon wrote is a biography of Florence Nightingale (1978). He also wrote a book on Jack the Ripper (1980) in which he argued that the serial killer, like himself, must have been not only a doctor but also an anesthesiologist, as no one heard the victims' screams and therefore chloroform based on medical knowledge must have been used.

He had four children with his wife, Mary Ostlere, who used to be a doctor herself. He lived in London.

Gordon Stanley Ostlere died in August 2017, five weeks before he would turn 96.

Works (selection)

  • Doctor in the House . London: Joseph. 1952.
  • Doctor at Sea . London: Joseph. 1953.
  • Doctor at Large . London: Joseph. 1955.
  • Doctor in Love . London. Joseph. 1957
  • Doctor and Son . London: Joseph. 1959.
  • Doctor in Clover . London: Joseph. 1960.
  • Doctor on toast . London: Joseph. 1961.
  • Doctor in the swim . London. Joseph. 1962.
  • The Summer of Sir Lancelot . Heinemann. 1965.
  • Love and Sir Lancelot . Heinemann. 1965.
  • Doctor on the Boil . Heinemann. 1970.
  • Doctor on the Brain . Heinemann. 1972.
  • Doctor in the Nude . Heinemann. 1973.
  • Doctor on the job . Heinemann. 1976.
  • Doctor in the Nest . Heinemann. 1979.
  • Doctor's Daughters . Heinemann. 1981.
  • Doctor on the Ball . Hutchinson. 1985.
  • Doctor in the soup . Century. 1986.
  • The last of Sir Lancelot . Hale. 1999.
  • The Captain's Table . London: Joseph. 1954.
  • Nuts in May . Heinemann. 1964.
  • The Facemaker . Heinemann. 1967.
  • Surgeon at Arms . Heinemann. 1968.
  • The Facts of Life . Heinemann. 1969
  • The Medical Witness . Heinemann. 1971
  • The Sleep of Life . Heinemann. 1975.
  • The Invisible Victory . Heinemann. 1977.
  • The Private Life of Florence Nightingale . Heinemann. 1978.
  • The Private Life of Jack the Ripper . Heinemann. 1980.
  • The Private Life of Doctor Crippen . Heinemann, 1981.
  • Dr. Gordon's Casebook (diary), Severn House, 1982 ISBN 0727808389
  • Great Medical Disasters , Hutchinson, 1983 ISBN 0091522307
  • Great Medical Mysteries , Hutchinson, 1984 ISBN 0091556600
  • The Bulldog and the Bear: A Play in Two Acts , Samuel French 1984 ISBN 0573619085
  • The Alarming History of Medicine , Sinclair-Stevenson, 1993 ISBN 1856192229
  • The Literary Companion to Medicine: An Anthology of Prose and Poetry , Sinclair-Stevenson, 1993 ISBN 1856193357
  • An Alarming History of Famous and Difficult Patients , St. Martin's Press, 1997 ISBN 0312150482

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Richard Gordon obituary in: The Guardian , August 15, 2017, accessed August 15, 2017
personal data
SURNAME Gordon, Richard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ostlere, Gordon Stanley (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British medic and writer
DATE OF BIRTH September 15, 1921
DATE OF DEATH 11th August 2017