Max Carrados, the blind detective, is called in by his friend Mr Carlyle to advise a man who believes his sister is at imminent risk of being murdered by her husband at their lonely cottage on the rural fringe of London. Max quickly deduces that an ingenious crime is being planned, but will he be in time to prevent a tragedy...?
A new, original recording of a classic public domain text, read and performed by Simon Stanhope for Bitesized Audio.
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Ernest Bramah (1868-1942) was born Ernest Bramah Smith, probably in or near Manchester, where he attended grammar school. An intensely private man, very little information is known about his personal life. His early career included a stint as assistant to Jerome K. Jerome; his first success as a writer came as a contributor of humorous sketches somewhat in the manner of Jerome, to newspapers and periodicals, and he later became editor of one of Jerome's magazines. As an author he is best remembered for creating two characters: Kai Lung, a Chinese storyteller who appeared in a number of humorous stories from 1900; and Max Carrados, the blind detective, created in 1913. He also wrote science fiction, and his 1907 novel 'What Might Have Been' (also known as 'The Secret of the League') is a dystopian story which was acknowledged by George Orwell as a major influence on his own 'Nineteen Eighty-four'. Orwell was also a great admirer of the Max Carrados stories, bracketing them with Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Freeman's Dr Thorndyke as "the only detective stories since Poe that are worth re-reading". The character of Carrados appeared in more than 25 short stories and novels between 1913 and 1934, and by the 1920s was more popular than Sherlock Holmes (whose later cases appeared alongside Carrados in The Strand Magazine). His blindness proves no obstacle to his detective skills; indeed his other senses are heightened and he regularly outwits criminals and fellow detectives alike.
'The Tragedy at Brookbend Cottage' first appeared in 'The News of the World' on 7 September 1913. It was subsequently published in book form as part of the first volume of Carrados stories (entitled simply 'Max Carrados') in 1914. It has gone on to be one of the most frequently anthologised of the blind detective's exploits.
The cover image is adapted from a painting by John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-1893), one of several depictions he made of Yew Court, Scalby, near Scarborough.
Recording © Bitesized Audio 2022.