Harry Dickson - Fictional Biography

Fictional Biography

Based on various clues mentioned in the series, Harry Dickson was likely born circa 1890 in New York. He was educated from childhood in England, because his father wanted him to receive a British education. He only spent three months during his summer holidays in New York where, as a child, he befriended Reginald Marlow.

Dickson’s family background is unknown, but we know that Arsène Lupin studied magic with a stage magician named Dickson in Paris in 1893.

At age 15, Dickson was a student in England at the Pertwee Private School and solved a case involving a diamond smuggling ring. At age 20 or about, Dickson enrolled as a student at the University of South Kensington in London and became acquainted with Jean Ray’s armchair detective Mister Triggs. He also helped fellow French student Antoine de Hautefeuille solve a family mystery.

Coincidentally, Arnould Galopin began recording the adventures of a young detective named Allan Dickson also in 1910 although Galopin’s Dickson is said to be Australian.

In 1919, Dickson was on an official intelligence mission in post-war Berlin. There, he met the brilliant Professor Krausse, whom he much impressed. Dickson met Krausse again, ten years later, i.e.: in 1929, when he was already an established detective at 221B Baker Street. This supports the motion that Dickson’s published cases take place from the mid-1920s to the mid- or late 1930s when he was in his late thirties and early forties, which is consistent with his physical description and abilities.