Audiobook · read by volunteers
Old Man in the Corner
Baroness Emma Orczy (1865–1947)
Read by J. M. Smallheer · 25 chapters · 6 h 20
About the book
In a London tea shop, a young newspaper reporter keeps running into a strange, fidgety old man who sits in a corner, fiddles with a piece of string, and claims that he can solve any crime without ever leaving his seat. The police, he says, are fools. Then he proves it. The Fenchurch Street Mystery is only the first of a series of baffling cases that he unpicks for her over a quiet lunch, including a millionaire in the dock and puzzles of poison, theft and murder. Created by Baroness Orczy, the author of the Scarlet Pimpernel, the Old Man in the Corner is one of the earliest armchair detectives, a rival to Sherlock Holmes in a smaller, quirkier room. J. M. Smallheer reads twenty-five short episodes. A fine choice for mystery fans looking for a classic with a twist.
Introduction
Baroness Emma Orczy was born in 1865 and died in 1947. Hungarian by birth, she lived in England from her teens and wrote in a range of genres, but she is most closely associated with the adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel. Her detective stories, though less well known, were successful in their own time and remain fresh.
The Old Man in the Corner was published in 1908. It was written in the wake of the huge popularity of the Sherlock Holmes stories, at a moment when many writers were creating their own detectives. Orczy’s version is unusual in that the detective never investigates in person. He listens to the facts reported in the newspapers, thinks them over and then explains what really happened to the journalist across the table, who becomes both his audience and his foil.
The result is a series of tidy, ingenious puzzles in which the solution turns on logic rather than action. Some of the cases end in a way that leaves the reader wondering about justice. Language and attitudes reflect the Edwardian period, and a few remarks about class and nationality are of their time.
This LibriVox recording has twenty-five short chapters, beginning with the Fenchurch Street Mystery, and runs for around six hours and a quarter. It is read by volunteer J. M. Smallheer. It is a good introduction to the golden age of the detective short story, and a pleasure for anyone who likes to try to guess the answer before the solution is revealed.
Public domain
Baroness Emma Orczy died in 1947: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text