Margery Allingham (May 20, 1904 - June 30, 1966)
Born in the London suburb of Ealing to a literary family, Margery Allingham (Ealing, May 20, 1904 - Colchester, June 30, 1966) began her professional writing career at the age of eight with a story published in one of her aunt’s journals! Her first novel, The White Cottage Mystery, appeared in 1928. With her next effort, The Black Dudley Murder, she introduced Albert Campion, the aristocratic, unassuming detective for whom she is well known. Campion mysteries written in the 1930s and 1940s include: Dancers in Mourning, Death of a Ghost, Fear Sign, Pearls before Swine, and Traitor’s Purse.
She grew up in a Georgian rectory in a little village near Colchester. She was a pupil at the Perse School in Cambridge then went on to study drama and speech training at the Regent Street Polytechnic in London where she learnt to control a childhood stammer.
She is still thought of as one of the three great women writers of the "Golden Age" of crime fiction (even if she is seldom read today), and The Tiger in the Smoke is often described as her best book. She and her husband, Philip Youngman Carter, had lived at D'Arcy House in the Essex village of Tolleshunt D'Arcy, near Maldon in Essex, since 1935, and it is there that most of her books were written. She suffered from severe depression and we know now that her husband Pip even had a child by the well-known journalist Nancy Spain who was then a respected lesbian icon. After her death (from cancer) in 1966, her husband went on to write two more Albert Campion books. He had hoped to write more but died in 1969.
Source: http://www.detecs.org/avril.html
Further Readings:
Crime at Black Dudley: Albert Campion #1 by Margery Allingham
Publisher Felony & Mayhem (June 1, 2006)
Language English
ISBN-10 193339742X
ISBN-13 978-1933397429
Amazon: Crime at Black Dudley: Albert Campion #1
A house-party with a glittering guest-list. An imposing country estate with endless shadowy staircases and unused rooms. The breathless period between the two world wars. It's the ideal setting for the classic English murder mystery, and bringing it to perfection is the introduction?in a supporting role, for the first and last time?of Albert Campion, the consummate (if compulsively quipping) Gentleman Sleuth. The guests take some time to be grateful for Campion's presence; he is a bit peculiar, and they have more than enough distractions, what with various complicated love affairs, a curious ritual involving a jeweled dagger, and a deadly game of hide-and-seek.
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