Alleyn As A Gentleman Detective
The gentleman detective has long been a staple of British crime fiction, particularly in novels from the Golden Age.
One obvious comparison with Roderick Alleyn is the fictional Lord Peter Wimsey. Alleyn's family background resembles the relationships created by Dorothy Sayers for her fictional Lord Peter Wimsey (born 1890). Like Alleyn, Wimsey has a titled older brother, who however is far more grand—he's a duke. Like Alleyn, Lord Peter's brother is less intelligent and more conventional than his more famous younger sibling. Alleyn's mother, Lady Alleyn, closely resembles in manner the Dowager Duchess of Denver, Wimsey's mother. Both ladies are affable and intelligent, and strongly support (and perhaps prefer) their younger sons. One marked difference between the fictional biographies of Alleyn and Wimsey, who are about the same age, is in their military service during World War I. Alleyn's army service is glossed over and never discussed, whereas Wimsey's distinguished service on the Western Front has mentally scarred him for life.
Like Alleyn, at least two of Agatha Christie's detectives clearly belong in the gentry. Her elderly spinster, Miss Marple, is not from the aristocracy but is quite at home amongst them, while the diminutive Mr. Satterthwaite (in The Mysterious Mr. Quin (1930) and Three Act Tragedy (1934)) has a similar background and is wealthy besides. Her most famous detective character, Hercule Poirot, is a foreigner, and is thus outside the English class system (of which Poirot takes advantage).
Two later and widely known gentleman detectives may also be compared to Alleyn. These are Adam Dalgliesh, created by P. D. James, and Inspector Morse, created by Colin Dexter. Like Alleyn, Dalgliesh flourishes in the Metropolitan Police despite being definitely gentry, but is a recluse and a poet. However, Morse works in Oxford and is (or was) upwardly mobile: he apparently won a scholarship to Oxford but subsequently failed. Like Alleyn and Wimsey, Morse served in the British army before joining the police.
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Famous quotes containing the words gentleman and/or detective:
“I believe no gentleman would like to have his family affairs neglected because his wife was filling her head with crotchets and pothooks, and who, because she understood a few scraps of Latin, valued that more than minding her needle or providing her husband’s dinner.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)
“When a man’s partner’s killed, he’s supposed to do something about it. It doesn’t make any difference what you thought of him, he was your partner and you’re supposed to do something about it. As it happens, we’re in the detective business; well, when one of your organization gets killed, it’s, it’s bad business to let the killer get away with it. Bad all around. Bad for every detective everywhere.”
—John Huston (1906–1987)