Josephine Tey - Forgotten? Master of Mystery. The Stephen King of the 1940's

Those who don't know history, have no idea what they are missing.

Josepine Tey was born in July 25, 1896, until her death on February 13, 1952 she taught school and eventually wrote - quite well if her audience is any judge. Her real name was Elizabeth Mackintosh. She was Scottish and maybe her ability to write was fostered by her mother who was also a teacher. She had two sisters. 

Tey was her pen name for her mystery stories and she wrote plays under the name of Gordon Daviot. Apparently, this was her favored alias as she used it often in public to keep her personal life secure. She avoided press and shunned interviews as well as photographers. 

Maybe that is why a serious mystery reader of the late 20th century, which I consider myself to be, had no freakin' idea who the hell she was. Am I truly such an illiterate heathen? 
Is she important? Why do we care?

We do because, British Crime Writers listed her mystery: The Daughter of Time as the number one crime novel ever written in their list from1990. The Daughter of Time was published in 1951. Mystery Writers of America made a list in 1995, and The Daughter of Time was listed as number four. She is listed among Christie, Poe, Chandler, Conan Doyle, Cain, Sayers, Westlake, MacDonald, Greene, Leonard, and Hammett, as well as other more recent master of the genre. She is ahead of all of them on the MWA list except: Arthur Conan Doyle, Dashiell Hammett, and Edgar Allen Poe. 

And yet, I do not recall coming across her name prior to today. 

Her well-written novel is not a case of a blind squirrel bumping into the acorn once in a lifetime. She also holds down place number 11 on the CWA list with her novel: The Franchise Affair from 1948. 

But back to The Daughter of Time, while her serial's protagonist, Alan Grant, a Scotland Yard Inspector, is recovering immobile in his hospital bed from serious injuries, using the serves of his friends, he researches the mysterious murders of the nephews of King Richard the third. This is, of course, history to Inspector Grant as it is to us as well. Grant uses documents and reference books to reach a conclusion: King Richard was totally innocent of the death of the Princes. 

In writing this formate, she essentially created the format for historic mystery novels - I call them docu-fiction. In The Daughter of Time, Josephine Tey concludes: the infamous Richard III of Shakespeare, school history books, and folk memory, is a Tudor fabrication - a device of literary fiction for England's most famous playwright. Her case for the defense is notably restrained. 

She was not limited to writing for theater or novels. 
A later novel, A Shilling for Candles (1936), became the basis for Alfred Hitchcock's favorite of his English era films, as Young and Innocent (1937). 

I doubt that in today's world of media tours - twitter, face book, p-interest, linked in, google plus, tsu, U-tube, streaming videos, Squiddo.com, goodreads, MySpace, Shelfari, authornation, Hubpages, Digg.com, Stumbleupon, Reddit.com, Mixx.com - that Josephine Tey aka Gordon Davoit, or the real person, Elizabeth Mackintosh could have survived as she wanted to, as a recluse, unbothered and invisible. She could not have stayed such a hermit. Unless her name is Stephen King.   

-- L. Preschel author of Sam-Cath mysteries.