Читать книгу Two Bottles of Relish: The Little Tales of Smethers and Other Stories - Lord Dunsany, Lord Dunsany - Страница 5

ONE of the most unforgettable short stories of detection-and-horror ever written—Lord Dunsany’s ‘The Two Bottles of Relish’, about detective Linley—first appeared in book form in an anthology titled Powers of Darkness (London: Philip Allan, 1934). The story, an unqualified tour de force, has an interesting and revealing history. Lord Dunsany was amused to notice that people were reading gruesome stories of murder in preference to his own more delicate tales. He wondered if he could write a story ‘gruesome enough for them’. So, with ’tec tongue in cheek but writing with grim seriousness, Lord Dunsany fashioned ‘The Two Bottles of Relish’.

The story proved ‘gruesome enough’—indeed, it far exceeded Lord Dunsany’s original intent. Editors were fascinated by the tale, but they frankly confessed that it made them ill. As a matter of fact, no male editor in England or America would publish the story. Finally, a woman dared—Lady Rhondda, who printed it in Time and Tide, November 12-19, 1932. Lord Dunsany has always thought that Lady Rhondda, a militant feminist, published the story as an example of sheer realism, saying to herself, ‘That is just how men do treat women.’ Gradually the widespread nausea (to use Lord Dunsany’s own phrase) seems to have worn off …

Lord Dunsany informs us that there are seven other tales about detective Linley, and that he hopes to include all eight in his 1951 volume of short stories. Needless to say, this book, when published, will be selected for Queen’s Quorum, for if Lord Dunsany had written only the very first tale of detective Linley, without the seven ‘sequels’, this single achievement would have earned Mr Linley’s creator a permanent seat at King Edgar’s Round Table.

ELLERY QUEEN

1948