Martin Hewitt, Investigator

About Arthur Morrison

Rosemary Herbert (Biography) is editor in chief of The Oxford Companion to Crime & Mystery Writing and author of Front Page Teaser: A Liz Higgins Mystery. A former Harvard University reference librarian and a longtime journalist and literary critic her books also include Whodunnit? A Whos Who in Crime & Mystery Writing Murder on Deck! Shipboard & Shoreline Mystery Stories and Twelve American Crime Stories. She co-edited with Tony Hillerman The Oxford Book of American Detective Stories and A New Omnibus of Crime. After residing on a Maine island she now lives in Americas heartland where she pursues writing and ceramic arts. Judith John (glossary) is a writer and editor specializing in literature and history. A former secondary school English Language and Literature teacher she has subsequently worked as an editor on major educational projects including English A: Literature for the Pearson International Baccalaureate series. Judiths major research interests include Romantic and Gothic literature and Renaissance drama. Arthur Morrison (18631945) was born in the East End of London. He later became a writer for The Globe newspaper and showed a keen interest in relating the real and bleak plight of those living in London slums. When Arthur Conan Doyle killed off Sherlock Holmes in 1893 a vacuum opened up for detective heroes. In the wake Morrison created Martin Hewitt publishing stories about him in The Strand Magazine which had also first published Sherlock Holmes. Though a man with genius deductive skill Morrisons Hewitt character was the polar opposite to Holmes: genial and helpful to the police. He was perhaps the most popular of these new investigator fiction heroes.