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Overview
Monsignor Ronald A. Knox (1888-1957) was a British clergyman of the Roman Catholic Church, editor, a literary critic, a humorist, and a detective story writer. He laid out, with a gentle wit, the "ten rules (or commandments)" that guided detective fiction in its Golden Age. He was a member of the Detection Club (which included literary greats such as Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and Margery Allingham) and contributed to all three of the Detection Club collaboration books that were produced during his era.
I started this challenge because the only Golden Age Mystery Authors challenge I found here (and joined) had unfortunately left Fr. Knox out!
I started this challenge because the only Golden Age Mystery Authors challenge I found here (and joined) had unfortunately left Fr. Knox out!
Knox’s Commandments:
- The criminal must be someone mentioned in the early part of the story, but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to follow.
- All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.
- Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable.
- No hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which will need a long scientific explanation at the end.
- No Chinaman must figure in the story. (I guess to keep the Chinese from being and easy & potentially lazy fallback for a murderer?)
- No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right.
- The detective must not himself commit the crime.
- The detective must not light on any clues which are not instantly produced for the inspection of the reader.
- The stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal any thoughts which pass through his mind; his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly, below that of the average reader.
- Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them.
Ronald Knox (Golden Age Mystery Author)
5 participants (5 books)
Overview
Monsignor Ronald A. Knox (1888-1957) was a British clergyman of the Roman Catholic Church, editor, a literary critic, a humorist, and a detective story writer. He laid out, with a gentle wit, the "ten rules (or commandments)" that guided detective fiction in its Golden Age. He was a member of the Detection Club (which included literary greats such as Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and Margery Allingham) and contributed to all three of the Detection Club collaboration books that were produced during his era.
I started this challenge because the only Golden Age Mystery Authors challenge I found here (and joined) had unfortunately left Fr. Knox out!
I started this challenge because the only Golden Age Mystery Authors challenge I found here (and joined) had unfortunately left Fr. Knox out!
Knox’s Commandments:
- The criminal must be someone mentioned in the early part of the story, but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to follow.
- All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.
- Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable.
- No hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which will need a long scientific explanation at the end.
- No Chinaman must figure in the story. (I guess to keep the Chinese from being and easy & potentially lazy fallback for a murderer?)
- No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right.
- The detective must not himself commit the crime.
- The detective must not light on any clues which are not instantly produced for the inspection of the reader.
- The stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal any thoughts which pass through his mind; his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly, below that of the average reader.
- Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them.
