Virgil Markham

Virgil Markham (* 2. April 1899 in Oakland , California , † 1973 ) was an American author of detective novels .

Markham was the son of the writer Edwin Markham and his third wife Anne Catherine Murphy. In 1901 Markham came to New York with his family , first to Brooklyn , then later to Staten Island .

Through his father and his friends and acquaintances - Ambrose Bierce , Florence Coates , Jack London , Amy Lowell , Carl Sandburg and others. a. - Markham came into contact with literature at an early age. As a teenager he began his first literary attempts.

Markham studied a. a. Literature and Pedagogy. He later taught at the Markham Intermediate School (Staten Island), which bears its current name in honor of his father. Between 1926 and 1935 he wrote nine detective novels, some of the recurring protagonist of which is an Inspector Rusby . After the death of his father in 1940 he had rights to his literary estate. Among other things, he taught English at Wagner College on Staten Island . Virgil Markham died in 1973.

Works (selection)

• The scamp; the fortunes of Francis Talbot and his friends during the reign of His Majesty George the First . 1926.
• Death in the dusk . 1928.
• The rogues' road; seven turbulent days in the lives of Francis Talbot, his wife Dorothy, and the scamp - risks and rescues which befell in the summer of 1726 . 1930.
• The black door . 1930.
• The devil drives . 1932.
• Red warning . 1933.
• Inspector Rusby's finale . 1933.
• The dead are prowling . 1934.
• The deadly jest . 1935.

literature

• Armin Arnold u. a. (Ed.): Reclams Kriminalromanführer . Reclam, Stuttgart 1978, ISBN 3-15-010278-2 , p. 247.

Web links

• Literature by and about Virgil Markham in the WorldCat bibliographic database

Individual evidence

1. ^ The Literary Life . In: Times Magazine, July 27, 1942.
2. ↑ Markham Birthday Observed . In: New York Times, April 24, 1945.
3. ^ Markham Playground on the New York Parks Department website. (Retrieved September 27, 2010.)