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Gideon Fell

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Created by
  
Nationality
  
British

First appearance
  
Gender
  
Male

Last appearance
  
Fell and Foul Play

Gideon Fell imagespaperbackswapcoml9809989780821720998jpg

Occupation
  
Lexicographer, Detective

Portrayed by
  
Similar
  
Sir Henry Merrivale, Henri Bencolin, Roderick Alleyn, Drury Lane, Nero Wolfe

Dr Gideon Fell is a fictional character created by John Dickson Carr. He is the protagonist of 23 mystery novels from 1933 through 1967, as well as a few short stories. Carr was an American who lived most of his adult life in England; Dr. Fell is an Englishman who lives in the London suburbs.

Contents

Gideon Fell Gideon Fell Mysteries Shelf

Dr Fell is supposedly based upon G. K. Chesterton (author of the Father Brown stories), whose physical appearance and personality were similar to those of Doctor Fell.

Gideon Fell Gideon Fell Mysteries Shelf

Biography

Gideon Fell Gideon Fell Mysteries BBC Radio 4 Fullcast Drmatisation Starring

Dr. Fell is described as a corpulent man with a moustache who wears a cape and a shovel hat and walks with the aid of two canes. He is frequently described as bringing the spirit of Father Christmas or Old King Cole into a room. In his early appearances he was introduced as a lexicographer but this description gradually disappeared and he was thereafter mostly referred to as working on a monumental history of the beer-drinking habits of the English people. Dr. Fell is an amateur sleuth, frequently called upon by the police, whom he frustrates in the usual manner of most fictional detectives by refusing to reveal his deductions until he has arrived at a complete solution to the problem. The most recurring police character was Superintendent Hadley. Most of Fell's exploits concern the unravelling of locked room mysteries or of "impossible crimes". When he himself becomes frustrated, he is likely to cry out, "Archons of Athens!" When Fell is not traveling, he lives with his wife in a somewhat cluttered house. The wife's name is never given, and little of her character is revealed, except that she is rather eccentric as well. She goes unmentioned in many of the books, but an allusion to her late in the series indicates that the couple's domestic life is unchanged. The Fells have no children. Chapter 17 of the novel The Three Coffins contains Dr. Fell's "locked room lecture", in which he delineates many of the methods by which apparently locked-room or impossible-crime murders might be committed. In the course of his discourse, he states, off-handedly, that he and his listeners are, of course, characters in a book.

Chronology

Gideon Fell Top 10 Great Iconic Fictitious Detective Characters Grab List

  • 1933, Hag's Nook
  • 1933, The Mad Hatter Mystery
  • 1934, The Eight of Swords
  • 1934, The Blind Barber
  • 1935, Death-Watch
  • 1935, The Hollow Man (The Three Coffins)
  • 1936, The Arabian Nights Murder
  • 1937, To Wake the Dead
  • 1938, The Crooked Hinge
  • 1939, The Problem of the Green Capsule (The Black Spectacles/Mystery in Limelight)
  • 1939, The Problem of the Wire Cage
  • 1940, The Man Who Could Not Shudder
  • 1941, The Case of the Constant Suicides
  • 1941, Death Turns the Tables (The Seat of the Scornful)
  • 1944, Till Death Do Us Part
  • 1946, He Who Whispers
  • 1947, The Sleeping Sphinx
  • 1949, Below Suspicion
  • 1958, The Dead Man's Knock
  • 1960, In Spite of Thunder
  • 1965, The House at Satan's Elbow
  • 1966, Panic in Box C
  • 1967, Dark of the Moon
  • 1991, Fell and Foul Play
  • Adaptations

    Gideon Fell The Problem of the Green Capsule Dr Gideon Fell 10 by John

    The Seat of the Scornful was adapted as a 1956 episode of the BBC Sunday Night Theatre. Fell was portrayed by Finlay Currie.

    Donald Sinden played Fell in a series of BBC Radio adaptations.


    Gideon Fell The Hollow Man and The House in Gallows Lane Gideon Fell Mysteries

    References

    Gideon Fell Wikipedia