The Cases of Blue Ploermell
About this ebook
He also wrote a series of 13 short Sherlockian parodies — 10,000 words in all — starring Blue Ploermell, a “psychosocial” detective with a fondness for animal crackers. Aided (and occasionally impeded) by his Chinese manservant, Gong Low, Ploermell investigates cases marked by his cock-eyed deductions, loopy logic, and a knack for leaping to the wrong conclusion.
These juvenilia represents Thurber’s first attempts at learning the craft of humor writing. Looking back at this work years later, he even considered publishing the Ploermell stories.
The Cases of Blue Ploermell, for the first time in a century, collects the 13 stories. Edited and annotated by Bill Peschel, they show Thurber trying his hand at characterization, story structure, ethnic humor, and serial writing in a style rarely seen at any newspaper.
In addition to the annotations, Peschel wrote essays on Thurber’s years in Columbus, Ohio; journalism in the 1920s; the state of Sherlockian parodies; and depictions of Chinese men and women in American popular culture.
Note: The 13 stories are very short, and take up 40 pages of this 200-page book. The rest of the book consists of these essays: “Becoming James Thurber” (39 pages); “Journalism in Thurber’s Time” (4 pages); “Sherlockian Parodies in the 1920s” (8 pages); “The Ancestors of Gong Low” (13 pages); “The Chinese in Popular Culture” (35 pages); movie reviews (19 pages); chronology (9 pages); lists (7 pages).
SHORT DESCRIPTION: In 1923, a young James Thurber wrote 13 short Sherlockian parodies (10,000 words) for his newspaper in Columbus, Ohio. They starred Blue Ploermell, a “psychosocial” detective with a fondness for animal crackers. Aided by his Chinese manservant, he solves cases with his cock-eyed deductions and a knack for leaping to the wrong conclusion. This book contains the stories plus essays about Thurber.
About the author
JAMES THURBER (1894-1961) was an American cartoonist, journalist, playwright, and humorist, best known for his cartoons and short stories published in The New Yorker.
Bill Peschel is a former journalist who shares a Pulitzer Prize with the staff of The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa. He is also a mystery fan who runs the Wimsey Annotations online. The author of Writers Gone Wild (Penguin), he publishes through Peschel Press the 223B Casebook Series of Sherlockian parodies and pastiches and annotated editions of Dorothy L. Sayers’ Whose Body? and Agatha Christie’s The Mysterious Affair at Styles, The Secret Adversary, Murder on the Links and The Secret of Chimneys. An interest in Victorian crime led to the republication of three books on the William Palmer poisoning case.
Peschel lives with his wife, Teresa — whose books are published through Peschel Press — in Hershey, where the air really does smell like chocolate.
