Herman Cyril McNeile , MC (28 de septiembre de 1888 - 14 de agosto de 1937), comúnmente conocido como Cyril McNeile y que publica bajo el nombre de HC McNeile o el seudónimo de Sapper , fue un soldado y autor británico. Basándose en sus experiencias en las trincheras durante la Primera Guerra Mundial , comenzó a escribir cuentos y a publicarlos en el Daily Mail . Como a los oficiales en servicio del ejército británico no se les permitía publicar con sus propios nombres, Lord Northcliffe , el propietario del Daily Mail , le dio el seudónimo de "Sapper" ; el apodo se basaba en el de su cuerpo, elIngenieros reales .
Después de la guerra, McNeile dejó el ejército y continuó escribiendo, aunque pasó de historias de guerra a novelas de suspenso . En 1920 publicó Bulldog Drummond , cuyo héroe epónimo se convirtió en su creación más conocida. El personaje se basó en el propio McNeile, en su amigo Gerard Fairlie y en caballeros ingleses en general. McNeile escribió diez novelas de Bulldog Drummond, así como tres obras de teatro y un guión .
McNeile entremezclaba su trabajo de Drummond con otras novelas y colecciones de historias que incluían a dos personajes que aparecían como protagonistas de sus propias obras, Jim Maitland y Ronald Standish. Fue uno de los autores populares británicos más exitosos del período de entreguerras antes de su muerte en 1937 por cáncer de garganta, que se ha atribuido al daño sufrido por un ataque con gas en la guerra.
Las historias de McNeile son directamente sobre la guerra o contienen personas cuyas vidas han sido moldeadas por ella. Sus thrillers son una continuación de sus historias de guerra, con ingleses de clase alta defendiendo Inglaterra de los extranjeros que conspiran contra ella. Aunque en ese momento se lo veía como "simplemente un conservador honrado que hablaba en nombre de muchos de sus compatriotas", [1] después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial su trabajo fue criticado por tener connotaciones fascistas , al tiempo que mostraba la xenofobia y el antisemitismo aparentes en algunos otros escritores de la época.
Biografía
Vida temprana
McNeile nació en Bodmin , Cornwall . Era hijo de Malcolm McNeile, un capitán de la Royal Navy que en ese momento era gobernador de la prisión naval de Bodmin, [3] [a] y Christiana Mary (de soltera Sloggett). [4] La familia McNeile tenía raíces ancestrales tanto de Belfast como de Escocia, [5] y contaba con un general del Ejército Británico de la India entre sus miembros. [6]
A McNeile no le gustaba ninguno de sus nombres de pila, pero prefería que lo llamaran Cyril, aunque sus amigos siempre lo conocieron como Mac. [6] [7] Después de asistir a una escuela preparatoria en Eastbourne , fue educado en Cheltenham College . [2] Al salir de la universidad, se unió a la Real Academia Militar de Woolwich , [7] de la que fue comisionado en los Reales Ingenieros como subteniente en julio de 1907. [8] Recibió más formación en la Real Escuela Militar Ingeniería antes de un breve destino en Aldershot Garrison . [2] Recibió el ascenso a teniente en junio de 1910 [9] y fue enviado a Canterbury , sirviendo tres años con la 3ra Tropa de Campo, hasta enero de 1914, cuando fue destinado a Malta. [2]
En 1914 McNeile fue ascendido al rango de capitán . [5] Todavía estaba en Malta cuando estalló la guerra y se le ordenó viajar a Francia en octubre de 1914; [2] viajó por Inglaterra y se casó con Violet Evelyn Baird el 31 de octubre de 1914. [4] Baird era la hija del teniente coronel Arthur Baird Douglas de los Cameron Highlanders . [10] [b]
Servicio de la Primera Guerra Mundial
El 2 de noviembre de 1914 McNeile viajó a Francia como parte de la Fuerza Expedicionaria Británica . [2] [11] Se conocen pocos detalles sobre el servicio de guerra de McNeile, ya que sus registros fueron destruidos por bombas incendiarias durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial . Pasó tiempo con varias unidades de Ingenieros Reales en el Frente Occidental , incluido el 1er Escuadrón de Campo RE, la 15ª Compañía de Campo RE y los elementos RE de la 33ª División . [2]
La primera historia publicada conocida de McNeile, Reminiscences of Sergeant Michael Cassidy , fue serializada en la página cuatro del Daily Mail desde el 13 de enero de 1915. [12] [c] Como oficiales en servicio en el ejército británico no se les permitió publicar bajo sus propios nombres excepto durante sus sabáticos a mitad de salario , muchos escribirían bajo un seudónimo; [7] Lord Northcliffe , el dueño del Daily Mail , le dio a McNeile el seudónimo de "Zapador", ya que los Ingenieros Reales eran comúnmente conocidos como Zapadores . [14] [15] McNeile más tarde confesó que había comenzado a escribir por "puro aburrimiento". [5] Algunas de sus historias aparecieron en la página cuatro del Daily Mail durante los meses siguientes. [16] Northcliffe quedó impresionado por su escritura e intentó, pero fracasó, que lo liberaran del ejército para trabajar como corresponsal de guerra. [7] A finales de 1915, había escrito dos colecciones de cuentos, El teniente y otros y el sargento Michael Cassidy, RE , ambos publicados por Hodder & Stoughton . [12] Aunque muchas de las historias ya habían aparecido en el Daily Mail , [12] entre 1916 y 1918 el sargento Michael Cassidy, RE vendió 135.000 copias y The Lieutenant and Others vendió 139.000 copias. [17] Al final de la guerra, había publicado tres colecciones más, Hombres, mujeres y armas (1916), No Man's Land (1917) y The Human Touch (1918). [12] En 1916 escribió una serie de artículos titulados The Making of an Officer , que apareció bajo las iniciales CN, en cinco números de The Times entre el 8 y el 14 de junio de 1916. [18] [19] Los artículos estaban dirigidos a jóvenes y nuevos oficiales para explicarles sus deberes; estos fueron recopilados y publicados por Hodder & Stoughton más tarde en 1916. [18]
During his time with the Royal Engineers, McNeile saw action at the First and Second Battles of Ypres[7]—he was gassed at the second battle[20]—and the Battle of the Somme.[2] In 1916 he was awarded the Military Cross[21] and was mentioned in dispatches;[22] in November that year he was gazetted to acting major.[23] From 1 April to 5 October 1918, he commanded a battalion of the Middlesex Regiment and was promoted to acting lieutenant-colonel;[24] the scholar Lawrence Treadwell observes that "for an engineer to command an infantry regiment was ... a rarity".[2] 18th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment under McNeile saw action for the remainder of his command, and were involved in fighting during the Hundred Days Offensive in the St. Quentin-Cambrai sector in September 1918;[2] during the year, he was again mentioned in dispatches.[25] On 2 October 1918 he broke his ankle and was briefly hospitalised, which forced him to relinquish his command of the regiment on 4 October. He was on convalescent leave when the war ended in November 1918. During the course of the war, he had spent a total of 32 months in France,[2] and had probably been gassed more than once.[7] His literary output from 1915 to 1918 accounted for more than 80 collected and uncollected stories.[20] His brother—also in the Royal Engineers—had been killed earlier in the war.[2]
Post-war years
McNeile had a quiet life after the war; his biographer Jonathon Green notes that "as in the novels of fellow best-selling writers such as P. G. Wodehouse or Agatha Christie, it is the hero who lives the exciting life".[4] Although he was an "unremittingly hearty man",[26] he suffered from delicate health following the war.[27] He had a loud voice and a louder laugh, and "liked to enliven clubs and restaurants with the sight and sound of military good fellowship"; his friend and collaborator Gerard Fairlie described him as "not everybody's cup of tea",[15] and commented that "he was loud in every possible way—in his voice, in his laugh, in his clothes, in the unconscious swagger with which he always motivated himself, in his whole approach to life".[28] McNeile and his wife had two sons.[10]
On 13 June 1919 McNeile retired onto the reserve officer list and was confirmed in the rank of major.[29] The same year he also published a short-story collection, Mufti, in which he introduced a type of character as "the Breed", a class of Englishman who was patriotic, loyal and "physically and morally intrepid".[30] Although well received by the critics, the book failed commercially and, by the end of 1922, had only sold 16,700 copies from its first print run of 20,000; the unsold copies were pulped and the novel went out of print later that year.[31]
Advertisement placed in The Times by Drummond in Bulldog Drummond[32]
In 1920 McNeile published Bull-Dog Drummond, whose eponymous hero—a member of "the Breed"—became his most famous creation.[33] He had first written Drummond as a detective for a short story in The Strand Magazine, but the character was not successful and was changed for the novel, which was a thriller.[30] Captain Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond DSO, MC was described in the novel's sub-title as "a demobilised officer who found peace dull" after service during the First World War with the fictional Loamshire Regiment. Drummond went on to appear in ten full-length novels by McNeile[d] and a further seven by his friend Gerard Fairlie.[35] The character was an amalgam of Fairlie, himself, and his idea of an English gentleman.[30][e] Drummond also had roots in the literary characters Sherlock Holmes, Sexton Blake, Richard Hannay and The Scarlet Pimpernel.[37] Drummond was characterised as large, very strong, physically unattractive and an "apparently brainless hunk of a man",[38] who was also a gentleman with a private income;[39] he could also be construed as "a brutalized ex-officer whose thirst for excitement is also an attempt to reenact [sic] the war".[40] The character was later described by Cecil Day-Lewis, author of rival gentleman detective Nigel Strangeways, as an "unspeakable public school bully".[41] Drummond's main adversary across four novels is Carl Peterson,[f] a master criminal with no national allegiance, who is often accompanied by his wife, Irma.[43] Irma is described by Jonathon Green as "the slinky epitome of a twenties 'vamp'",[4] and by Lawrence Treadwell as dark, sexy and from an oriental background, "a true femme fatale".[42] After Carl Peterson's death in The Final Count, Irma swears revenge on Drummond and kidnaps his wife—whom he had met in Bull-Dog Drummond—with the intent of killing him in the ensuing chase.[44] Irma Peterson appears in six of McNeile's books, and in a further five by Fairlie.[42][g]
McNeile adapted Bulldog Drummond for the stage. It was produced at Wyndham's Theatre during the 1921–22 season, with Gerald du Maurier playing the title role;[45] it ran for 428 performances.[46][h] The play also ran in New York during the same season, with A. E. Matthews as Drummond.[46][i] Later in 1922 McNeile resigned his reserve commission with the rank of lieutenant-colonel,[49] and moved as a tax exile to Territet, Montreux, Switzerland, with his wife;[50] the Swiss countryside was later described in a number of his stories.[27][51]
The following year McNeile introduced the character of Jim Maitland, a "footloose sahib of the period".[52][j] Maitland was the protagonist of the 1923 novel Jim Maitland; he later appeared in a second novel in 1931, The Island of Terror. Around the time McNeile killed off the Carl Peterson character in The Final Count (1926), he also introduced the character Ronald Standish, who first appeared in "The Saving Clause" (1927) and "Tiny Carteret" (1930)[44] before becoming the protagonist in two collections of short stories, Ronald Standish (1933) and Ask for Ronald Standish (1936). The character also appeared in the final three Drummond novels, Knock-Out (1933), Bull-Dog Drummond at Bay (1935) and Challenge (1937).[44] Standish was a sportsman who played cricket for England and was a part-time consultant with the War Office.[53]
In 1929 McNeile edited a volume of short stories from O. Henry, The Best of O. Henry; the stories had served as models for him when he had started as a writer.[54] The same year, the film Bulldog Drummond was released, starring Ronald Colman in the title role. Colman was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor at the 3rd Academy Awards ceremony.[55] The film earned $750,000 at the box office,[56] and McNeile received an estimated £5,000 for the rights to his novel.[5] The same year he wrote his second play—The Way Out—which was staged at the Comedy Theatre in January 1930.[57][k] About a year later he and his wife returned to England, and settled near Pulborough, West Sussex.[51]
In 1935 McNeile, Fairlie, Sidney Gilliat and J.O.C. Orton collaborated on the screenplay Bulldog Jack, a "comedy thriller" with Jack Hulbert and Fay Wray, which was produced by Gaumont British.[58][59]
Death and legacy
In 1937 McNeile was working with Fairlie on the play Bulldog Drummond Hits Out[60][l] when he was diagnosed with terminal throat cancer. He came to an agreement with Fairlie for the play to continue after his death and for Fairlie to continue writing the Drummond stories.[27][61] McNeile died on 14 August 1937[62] at his home in West Chiltington, West Sussex.[63] Although most sources identify throat cancer as the cause of death, Treadwell also suggests that it may have been lung cancer.[64] It was "traceable to his war service",[4] and attributed to a gas attack.[7] His funeral, with full military honours, was conducted at Woking crematorium.[65] At his death his estate was valued at over £26,000.[5]
Bulldog Drummond Hits Out was finished by Fairlie and had a short tour of Brighton, Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh, before opening in London at the Savoy Theatre on 21 December 1937.[64] The story was later turned into a novel by Fairlie, with the title Bulldog Drummond on Dartmoor.[66] Fairlie continued to write Drummond novels, seven in total.[67][m]
Drummond, McNeile's chief literary legacy, became a model for other literary heroes created in the 1940s and '50s.[37] W. E. Johns used McNeile's work as a model for his character Biggles,[68] while Ian Fleming admitted that James Bond was "Sapper from the waist up and Mickey Spillane below".[4] Sydney Horler's popular character "Tiger" Standish was also modelled on Drummond.[50]
Escritura
McNeile's works fall into two distinct phases. Those works published between 1915 and 1918 are his war stories, and relate directly to his experiences during the First World War, while the later works are largely thrillers.[33][69] His war stories were marketed by the Daily Mail and Hodder & Stoughton as a soldier's eyewitness accounts. When he started writing thrillers, Hodder & Stoughton advertised McNeile as a "light and entertaining" writer,[12] and began publishing his works in the "Yellow Jacket" series.[70] Magazine editors competed vigorously for Sapper's stories and paid extravagant prices for them. Gerald Fairlie, his close friend and collaborator, has put it on record that Sapper was the highest-paid short story writer of his time.[71]
Style and technique
McNeile's early works, the war stories published before 1919, are either "plot-driven adventure narrative[s]", such as the short stories "The Song of the Bayonet" and "Private Meyrick, Company Idiot", or "atmospheric vignette[s]", such as "The Land of Topsy Turvy" and "The Human Touch".[72] McNeile would write about 1,000 words every morning in a routine that was rarely disturbed; he took no breaks while writing and would do no re-writes until he completed his work.[63][73] The academic Jessica Meyer has criticised his style as having "little aesthetic merit, being stylised, clichéd and often repetitive";[74] Richard Usborne agreed, adding that the female characters were "cardboard" and that McNeile was "wonderfully forgetful" about characters dead in one book and alive in the next.[75] In the Bulldog Drummond stories, Watson identifies the central character as "a melodramatic creation, workable only within a setting of melodrama".[76] The academic Joan DelFattore points out that while the characters and plots cannot be considered to be unique, credible or well-rounded, his books "make no claim to literary excellence",[45] and are instead, "good, solid thrillers".[45] Usborne agrees, and believes that McNeile wrote good stories that were flawed but well told.[77] Meyer classifies the non-war stories as middlebrow, with "sentimental plotlines and presenting a social message about the condition of England".[78] His early novels, particularly Bull-Dog Drummond and The Black Gang, were structured loosely and in some ways as short stories.[50] The academic Hans Bertens blamed this on McNeile's lack of experience and self-confidence, noting that in his later novels, McNeile "mastered the tricks of his trade".[79]
DelFattore outlines the use of double adjectives to reinforce feelings towards enemies in both his war stories and thrillers, such as "filthy, murdering Boche", and "stinking, cowardly Bolshevik".[45] She and the scholar Lise Jaillant also comment on the dehumanisation of the enemy, comparing them to animals and vermin.[31][45] Watson noted the frequency of the use of the word "devil"—and variations—when discussing antagonists.[76]
Major themes
First World War
The major theme running throughout McNeile's works is the First World War. Between 1915 and 1918 he had five collections of short stories published about the war,[12] while his post-war fiction can be seen as an extension of those stories, as "both treat the war as a trial with manhood at stake".[80] His war stories were considered by contemporary audiences as anti-sentimental, realistic depictions of the trenches, and as a "celebration of the qualities of the Old Contemptibles".[81] McNeile's view, as expressed through his writing, was that war was a purposeful activity for the nation and for individuals,[82] even if that purpose was later wasted: a "valuable chance at national renewal that had been squandered".[83] The positive effects of war on the individual were outlined by McNeile in The Making of an Officer, his series of articles in The Times, in which he wrote about "the qualities of leadership and selflessness essential to 'inspire' subalterns",[84] a theme he returned to in his war stories—particularly The Lieutenant and Others and Sergeant Michael Cassidy, R.E[83][84]—and then afterwards in his fictional stories, notably the Bulldog Drummond works.[80]
McNeile's fictional work—particularly his Drummond series of books—shows characters who have served in the war and have been affected by it; Jaillant comments that Drummond's war-time experience "has shaped his social identity, his skills, and even his physical appearance".[31] The Drummond character has been "brutalized by war",[39] which accounts for his physical approach when dealing with Peterson and others.[85]
England
McNeile provided Drummond with a "flamboyantly aggressive patriotism" towards England,[86] which Drummond defends physically against those who challenge its stability or morality.[30] Hans Bertens argued that the patriotism demonstrated by Drummond was closer to nationalistic pride and a paranoia about threats directed at the upper middle classes, of which Drummond was a member.[87] Drummond's nickname—Bulldog—is symbolic of England, and he and his English gentlemen friends—"the Breed"—fight the conspiracy of foreigners threatening England's stability.[88][89] McNeile's thriller stories do not often pit Englishman against Englishman as the main characters; most of the foreigners in his books are the villains.[90]
Sport
Running throughout McNeile's books is the metaphor of warfare as sport. His war stories include descriptions of fights between individuals that carry a sporting motif: in Sergeant Michael Cassidy, R.E., he writes, "To bag a man with a gun is one thing; there is sport—there is an element of one against one, like when the quality goes big game shooting. But to bag twenty men by a mine has not the same feeling at all, even if they are Germans".[18] The motif was continued into the Drummond novels.[39] McNeile reinforces this theme through his use of the language of public school sports,[86] or of boxing, poker or hunting.[91] The titles of his books also use sporting imagery: The Third Round, The Final Count, Knock-Out and Challenge.[91]
Reception
McNeile's war story collections sold well; nearly 50,000 copies of his first book, Sergeant Michael Cassidy, R.E., were purchased in its first year, and nearly 58,000 copies the following year.[69] His thrillers were also popular, with Bulldog Drummond selling 396,302 copies between 1920 and 1939, exceeding the 100,000-copies benchmark for "best-sellers".[92] At his peak in the 1920s, he was the highest paid short story writer in the world,[93] and it was estimated that in the last five years of his life he was earning around £10,000 a year;[5] the Daily Mirror estimated that during his writing career he had earned £85,000.[94]
McNeile's war stories were seen by reviewers as honest portrayals of the war, with British and American reviewers in the mainstream press praising his realism and avoidance of sentimentality in dealing with his subject matter. Reviewing Men, Women, and Guns for The Times Literary Supplement, Francis Henry Gribble wrote that "Sapper has been successful in previous volumes of war stories ... When the time comes for picking out the writers whose war fiction has permanent value, his claim to be included in the list will call for serious examination."[95] The reviewer of Sergeant Michael Cassidy, R.E. for The Atlanta Constitution reminded its readers that McNeile "has been called the foremost literary genius of the British army."[95] Jaillant observes that once McNeile moved from war stories to thrillers, with the concurrent re-positioning of advertising and marketing by Hodder & Stoughton, the reviewers also treated him differently, and presented him as "a writer of thrillers, without any pretension to literary seriousness".[96] When reviewing Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back[n] for The New York Times, the critic observed that "if you like a good knock-down-and-drag-out yarn with excitement and violence on nearly every page, you can't go wrong on Bulldog Drummond";[98] for the novel Bulldog Drummond at Bay, the reviewer considered that "as a piece of fictional melodrama, the book is first rate".[99] In the British market, The Times Literary Supplement also characterised him as a mass-market thriller writer, which contrasted with its consideration of his earlier works.[96]
Controversy
From the 1950s on, McNeile's work came to be viewed in the light of events of the Second World War,[40] and journalists such as Richard Usborne highlighted aspects of the stories which he considered were "carrying the Führer-principle".[100] DelFattore agrees, and considers that the second Bulldog Drummond novel—The Black Gang (1922)—is when the fascist element was introduced.[45] Jaillant notes that the accusations of fascism only came about after the Second World War,[31] while the academic Ion Trewin considers that through the Drummond stories, McNeile was seen at the time as "simply an upstanding Tory who spoke for many of his countrymen".[1]
Throughout the Drummond stories, much of the language used by McNeile's characters relating to ethnic minorities or Jews is considered by DelFattore to be "intensely conservative by modern standards";[30] Green observes that while the characters of other contemporary writers, such as Agatha Christie, "exhibit the inevitable xenophobia and anti-semitism of the period, McNeile's go far beyond the 'polite' norms".[4] J. D. Bourn considers his language to be "rather distasteful",[101] while the academic Michael Denning observed that "Drummond is a bundle of chauvinisms, hating Jews, Germans, and most other foreigners".[102]
Obras
notas y referencias
Notes
- ^ Malcolm McNeile was also later the governor of Lewes Naval Prison.[4]
- ^ He is also named as Arthur Sholto Douglas in some sources.[4]
- ^ Although there are claims that suggest Sapper's first stories were published in Blackwood's Magazine, none of these appear in the 1914–1918 issues under the name McNeile or Sapper.[13] His obituary in The Sunday Times states that he had written "practically nothing" prior to the war.[5]
- ^ The ten Drummond novels are: Bull-Dog Drummond (1920), The Black Gang (1922), The Third Round (1924), The Final Count (1926), The Female of the Species (1928), Temple Tower (1929), The Return of Bull-Dog Drummond (1932), Knock-Out (1933), Bull-Dog Drummond at Bay (1935) and Challenge (1937).[34]
- ^ Bourn disputes the Fairlie background to the character, noting that it was Fairlie who made the claim, although "he was still at school when Sapper created his ... hero".[36]
- ^ The four Drummond novels with Carl Peterson are: Bull-Dog Drummond (1920), The Black Gang (1922), The Third Round (1924) and The Final Count (1926).[42]
- ^ The six Drummond novels with Irma Peterson are: Bull-Dog Drummond (1920), The Black Gang (1922), The Third Round (1924), The Final Count (1926), The Female of the Species (1928) and The Return of Bulldog Drummond (1932).[42]
- ^ Du Maurier again played the role on 8 November 1932 in a special charity performance at the Royal Adelphi Theatre attended by King George VI.[47]
- ^ The play was later adapted for the screen and became the silent 1922 film Bulldog Drummond, with Carlyle Blackwell as the lead.[48]
- ^ Although published in the 1920s and 30s, the Maitland stories were set in 1912–13.[52]
- ^ The cast for The Way Out included Ian Hunter and Beatrix Thomson.[57]
- ^ Jonathon Green names the play as Bulldog Drummond Again, although this is not supported by any other sources.[4]
- ^ The seven Bulldog Drummond novels written by Fairlie are: Bulldog Drummond on Dartmoor (1938), Bulldog Drummond Attacks (1939), Captain Bulldog Drummond (1945), Bulldog Drummond Stands Fast (1947), Hands Off Bulldog Drummond (1949), Calling Bulldog Drummond (1951) and The Return of the Black Gang (1954).[34]
- ^ The novel was first published in the UK under the title Knock-Out and was renamed Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back for the US market.[97]
References
- ^ a b McNeile & Trewin 1983, p. xi: as quoted in Jaillant 2011, p. 163
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Treadwell 2001, p. 111.
- ^ Bourn 1990, pp. 24–25.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Green 2004.
- ^ a b c d e f g "War Made 'Sapper' a Writer". The Sunday Times. London. 15 August 1937. p. 17.
- ^ a b Treadwell 2001, p. 110.
- ^ a b c d e f g Bourn 1990, p. 25.
- ^ "No. 28049". The London Gazette. 9 August 1907. p. 5450.
- ^ "No. 28389". The London Gazette. 24 June 1910. p. 4488.
- ^ a b Who Was Who 1967, p. 883.
- ^ Haycraft 2005, p. 129.
- ^ a b c d e f Jaillant 2011, p. 140.
- ^ Jaillant 2011, pp. 163–164.
- ^ "Career of "Sapper": Creator of "Bulldog Drummond" Author and Dramatist". The Observer. London. 15 August 1937. p. 15.
- ^ a b Watson 1971, p. 63.
- ^ Jaillant 2011, pp. 140–141.
- ^ Jaillant 2011, p. 142.
- ^ a b c Jaillant 2011, p. 150.
- ^ C. N. (14 June 1916). "The Making of an Officer". The Times. London. p. 9.
- ^ a b Bertens 1990, p. 51.
- ^ "No. 29438". The London Gazette (Supplement). 11 January 1916. p. 579.
- ^ "British Army WWI Medal Rolls Index Cards, 1914–1920 Record for H C McNeile". Ancestry.com. Retrieved 8 January 2013. (subscription required)
- ^ "No. 29992". The London Gazette. 16 March 1917. p. 2741.
- ^ "No. 31090". The London Gazette (Supplement). 27 December 1918. p. 15241.
- ^ "No. 31080". The London Gazette (Supplement). 20 December 1918. p. 15039.
- ^ Adrian & Symons 1992, p. 70.
- ^ a b c Bourn 1990, p. 30.
- ^ Fairlie 1952, p. 15.
- ^ "No. 31470". The London Gazette (Supplement). 22 July 1919. p. 9401.
- ^ a b c d e DelFattore 1988, p. 223.
- ^ a b c d Jaillant 2011, p. 163.
- ^ McNeile 1920, p. 25.
- ^ a b Jaillant 2011, p. 137.
- ^ a b Neuburg 1983, p. 41.
- ^ Treadwell 2001, p. 54.
- ^ Bourn 1990, p. 31.
- ^ a b Panek 1981, p. 78.
- ^ Usborne 1983, p. 150.
- ^ a b c Jaillant 2011, p. 153.
- ^ a b Jaillant 2011, p. 138.
- ^ Watson 1971, p. 69.
- ^ a b c d Treadwell 2001, p. 132.
- ^ Treadwell 2001, p. 131.
- ^ a b c DelFattore 1988, p. 225.
- ^ a b c d e f DelFattore 1988, p. 224.
- ^ a b Treadwell 2001, p. 23.
- ^ Treadwell 2001, p. 182.
- ^ Treadwell 2001, p. 22.
- ^ "No. 32755". The London Gazette. 13 October 1922. p. 7202.
- ^ a b c Bertens 1990, p. 52.
- ^ a b Treadwell 2001, p. 114.
- ^ a b Usborne 1983, p. 178.
- ^ Treadwell 2001, p. 152.
- ^ Treadwell 2001, p. 124.
- ^ "The 3rd Academy Awards (1930) Nominees and Winners". Oscar Legacy. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 7 January 2013.
- ^ Frank 1997, p. 86.
- ^ a b Treadwell 2001, p. 170.
- ^ DelFattore 1988, p. 226.
- ^ "Bulldog Jack (1935)". Film & TV Database. British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 14 January 2009. Retrieved 17 January 2013.
- ^ Treadwell 2001, p. 26.
- ^ Treadwell 2001, pp. 26–27.
- ^ "Obituary: Lieut.-Colonel Cyril McNeile". The Times. London. 16 August 1937. p. 12.
- ^ a b Treadwell 2001, p. 113.
- ^ a b Treadwell 2001, p. 27.
- ^ "Funeral and Memorial Services". The Times. London. 20 August 1937. p. 13.
- ^ Treadwell 2001, pp. 27–28.
- ^ Treadwell 2001, p. 64.
- ^ Sutherland 2012, p. 142.
- ^ a b Meyer 2007, p. 116.
- ^ Jaillant 2011, p. 160.
- ^ Sapper (1984). Sapper - The Best Short Stories, Introduction by Jack Adrian. Great Britain: J.M Dent & Sons Ltd. pp. vii. ISBN 0-460-04672-1.
- ^ Meyer 2007, p. 118.
- ^ Fairlie 1952, p. 30.
- ^ Meyer 2007, p. 113.
- ^ Usborne 1983, p. 148.
- ^ a b Watson 1971, p. 65.
- ^ Usborne 1983, p. 146.
- ^ Meyer 2007, p. 115.
- ^ Bertens 1990, p. 53.
- ^ a b Jaillant 2011, p. 152.
- ^ Hynes 1990, p. 48.
- ^ Meyer 2007, p. 119.
- ^ a b Meyer 2007, p. 121.
- ^ a b Jaillant 2011, p. 151.
- ^ Watson 1971, pp. 69–70.
- ^ a b Watson 1971, p. 64.
- ^ Bertens 1990, p. 55.
- ^ Jaillant 2011, p. 155.
- ^ Panek 1981, p. 81.
- ^ Usborne 1983, p. 147.
- ^ a b Bertens 1990, p. 62.
- ^ Meyer 2007, p. 122.
- ^ Fowler, Christopher (1 April 2012). "Invisible Ink: No 117 – Sexton Blake and Bulldog Drummond". The Independent on Sunday. London. p. 66.
- ^ "Sapper's Books Made £85,000". Daily Mirror. London. 16 August 1937. p. 19.
- ^ a b Jaillant 2011, p. 144.
- ^ a b Jaillant 2011, p. 158.
- ^ DelFattore 1988, pp. 221–222.
- ^ "New Mystery Stories". The New York Times. New York. 11 June 1933.
- ^ "New Mystery Stories". The New York Times. New York. 10 March 1935.
- ^ Usborne 1983, p. 136.
- ^ Bourn 1990, p. 26.
- ^ Denning 1987, p. 55.
Bibliografía
- Adrian, Jack; Symons, Julian (1992). Strange tales from the Strand. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-282997-9.
- Bertens, Hans (1990). "A Society of Murderers Run on Sound Conservative Lines: The Life and Times of Sapper's Bulldog Drummond". In Bloom, Clive (ed.). Twentieth-Century Suspense: The Thriller Comes of Age. Basingstoke: The Macmillan Press. ISBN 978-0-333-47592-8.
- Bourn, J. D. (October 1990). "Sapper: Creator of Bull-Dog Drummond". The Book and Magazine Collector. Diamond Publishing Group (79).
- DelFattore, Joan (1988). "Herman Cyril McNeile (Sapper)". In Benstock, Bernard; Staley, Thomas (eds.). British Mystery Writers, 1920–1939. Detroit: Gale Research. ISBN 978-0-7876-3072-0.
- Denning, Michael (1987). Cover Stories: Narrative and Ideology in the British Spy Thriller. London: Routledge & K. Paul. ISBN 978-0-7100-9642-5.
- Frank, Sam (1997). Ronald Colman: A Bio-bibliography. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-26433-7.
- Fairlie, Gerard (1952). With Prejudice: Almost an Autobiography. London: Hodder & Stoughton. OCLC 2195522.
- Green, Jonathon (2004). "McNeile, (Herman) Cyril (1888–1937)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/34810. Retrieved 10 September 2012.CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link) (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- Haycraft, Howard (2005). The Boy's Second Book of Great Detective Stories. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4191-2277-4.
- Hynes, Samuel (1990). A War Imagined: The First World War and Modern Memory. London: The Bodley Head. ISBN 978-0-370-30451-9.
- Jaillant, Lise (2011). "Sapper, Hodder & Stoughton, and the Popular Literature of the Great War". Book History. Johns Hopkins University Press. 14. ISSN 1098-7371.
- McNeile, H. C. (1920). Bull-Dog Drummond: The Adventures of a Demobilised Officer Who Found Peace Dull. London: Hodder & Stoughton. OCLC 562338129.
- McNeile, H.C.; Trewin, Ion (1983). The Black Gang. London: Dent. ISBN 978-0-460-02245-3.
- Meyer, Jessica (2007). "The Tuition of Manhood: Sapper's War Stories and the Literature of the War". In Hammond, Mary; Towheed, Shafquat (eds.). Publishing in the First World War: Essays in Book History. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-230-50076-1.
- Neuburg, Victor E. (1983). The Popular Press Companion to Popular Literature. Bowling Green: Bowling Green State University Popular Press. ISBN 978-0-87972-233-3.
- Panek, LeRoy (1981). The Special Branch: The British Spy Novel, 1890–1980. Popular Press. ISBN 978-0-87972-178-7.
- Sutherland, John (2012). Lives of the Novelists. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-18243-9.
- Treadwell, Lawrence P. (2001). The Bulldog Drummond Encyclopedia. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-0-7864-0769-9.
- Usborne, Richard (1983). Clubland Heroes: A Nostalgic Study of the Recurrent Characters in the Romantic Fiction of Dornford Yates, John Buchan and "Sapper". London: Hutchinson. ISBN 978-0-09-152821-8.
- Watson, Colin (1971). Snobbery With Violence: English Crime Stories and their Audience. London: Eyre Methuen. ISBN 0-413-46570-5.
- Who Was Who, Volume 3 (1929–1940). London: A & C Black. 1967. ISBN 978-0-7136-0170-1. (subscription required)
enlaces externos
- Works by H. C. McNeile at Project Gutenberg
- Works by Herman Cyril McNeile at Faded Page (Canada)
- Works by or about H. C. McNeile at Internet Archive
- Works by H. C. McNeile at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- Works by H. C. McNeile at Open Library
- Images of the original dust jackets on McNeile's books.
- Portraits of McNeile at the National Portrait Gallery, London.
- H. C. McNeile at IMDb