The Bunburyist

Poe, other content at upcoming Amer Literature Assn mtg.

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth Foxwell) — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 08:07:00 +0000

Edgar Allan Poe, 1848.
Library of Congress,
Prints & Photos Div.

The American Literature Assn conference will take place at Chicago's Palmer House on May 20–23, 2026. Mystery fans may be interested in the following papers:

The Novel: Formal and Ethical Considerations (May 21)
• “Spectacular Violence, Speculative Truth: JFK, Conspiracy Culture, and Birth of the True Crime
Novel,” Pinar Tasdemir, Univ of Wisconsin–Madison

Religion in Contemporary American Fiction (May 21)
• “Late Thomas Pynchon: Detective Fiction and the Inner Life,” Luke Ferretter, Baylor Univ

Reassessments, Secrets, and Revelations (May 21)
• “Revealing the Secrets of Rawson’s Magical Mysteries,” Neil Tobin, Independent Scholar

An American Tragedy: A New Musical based on Theodore Dreiser’s Novel (May 21)

Pairing Poe in the Classroom (May 22)
Chair: Philip Edward Phillips, Middle Tennessee State Univ
• “Seeing and Seaing Wrong: Poe, Melville, and Interpretive Failure at Sea,” Sam Gleason, Pellissippi State Community College
• “Teaching the Abyss of Justification: Poe, Ngũgĩ, and the Collapse of Oppressive Rationalizations," Juliet Tawiah, Northern Illinois Univ
• “Poe and Poe AI: Calculating Fictions and the Philosophy of Artificial Composition," Craig Carey, Univ of Southern Mississippi

Postwar Consumerism and Consumption (May 22)
• “The Rise of the Working-Class Cop in the Novels of Ed McBain,” Joseph George, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State Univ

The Gothic's Successor Genres (May 22)
• "'Deep Red Bells': Shallow Graves and Uneven Development in True Crime's South," Jennie Lightweis-Goff
• "Gritty Gothic Noir: The Evolution of the Southern Gothic in Michael Farris Smith," Peter Ingrao
(Univ of Texas at Dallas)

Literary Movements after Poe (May 22)
Chair: Margarida Vale de Gato, Universidade de Lisboa
• “The Fall of the House of Nowak: Esmé Weijun Wang's Revision of Edgar Allan Poe," Andy Harper, St. Louis Univ
• “Rosa Arciniega's Descent into Poe's Maelstrom," Micah K. Donohue, Eastern New Mexico Univ
• “Cannibalizing Poe: The 'Pure Potential' of White Monstrosity in Edgar Allan Poe and Mónica Ojeda," Noah Reed Miranda, Smittcamp Family Honors College at California State Univ (Fresno)

Don DeLillo and the Canon of Literature (May 22)
Chair: Jesse Kavadlo, Maryville Univ
• "Doubling Dostoevsky: DeLillo's 'Midnight in Dostoevsky,’" Mark Osteen, Loyola Univ Maryland
• "‘Two Days Wrong!:' DeLillo's Textures of Time," Crystal Alberts, Univ of North Dakota
• “Owning Narrative in DeLillo and Eco,” Michael Streit, Independent Scholar
• “He Writes in Your Voice, American: DeLillo and Some Paradoxes of the Great American Novel”

Policed Bodies and Minds in American Literature (May 23)
• “An Irresistible and Uncontrollable Impulse’: The Legal Context for Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Imp of the Perverse,’” Rene H. Treviño, California State Univ

Clues 44.1: Indian crime fiction, French, Haycraft, James, Nancy Drew, Palahniuk, Penny, Rawson, and more.

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth Foxwell) — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 08:07:00 +0000

Clues vol. 44, no. 1 (2026) has been published. See below for abstracts. For a subscription, contact McFarland. This post will be updated when the ebook versions are available.

Introduction: Allusions and Illusions
CAROLINE REITZ (John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY/CUNY Graduate School)
Caroline Reitz, the executive editor of Clues, discusses the contents of the issue, including articles on crime fiction from India, Howard Haycraft's World War II writings, and queer aspects of Nancy Drew, as well as authors John Franklin Bardin, Tana French, P.D. James, Chuck Palahniuk, Louise Penny, Clayton Rawson, and Robert Egerton Swartwout.

Spotlight on... Indian Crime Fiction
TARUN K. SAINT
This essay traces the genre's evolution in India from its inception in the colonial era to recent times. Discussed are regional contexts of crime writing in Bengali, Hindi, Urdu, and Tamil to establish the historical framework and the recent efflorescence of crime writing in English that has feminist and postcolonial aspects.

Rethinking Democracy and Detective Fiction: The Legacies of Haycraft's Wartime Writings
BARBARA PEZZOTTI AND FABRICIO TOCCO (Monash Univ)
Howard Haycraft's "Dictators, Democrats, and Detectives" (1939); "The Future of the Detective Story"; and "The Rules of the Game" (1941) argued that detective fiction could only flourish in democracies. The authors demonstrate that crime fiction has proven versatile under dictatorships, functioning as a propaganda tool and an instrument of resistance.

"Magical Red Herrings": Personalized Experience and Specialized Knowledge in Clayton Rawson's The Footprints on the Ceiling
NEIL TOBIN
Clayton Rawson, like other magician-authors, was known to employ transferable magical skills while writing his popular mysteries. What may be unique in the genre was his use of a particular magical technique to create extra-deceptive red herrings that target subsets of his readership—and turn their specialized knowledge against them.

Discovering John Franklin Bardin
ROBERT LANCE SNYDER
John Franklin Bardin's The Deadly Percheron (1946), The Last of Philip Banter (1947), and Devil Take the Blue-Tail Fly (1948) explore dissociative identity disorder. His works, as well as novels by Patricia Highsmith, Helen Eustis, Shirley Jackson, and Margaret Millar, substantiate the syndrome's topical frequency after World War II.

Metafiction as Misdirection in R.E. Swartwout's The Boat Race Murder (1933)
COLIN CAVENDISH-JONES (Xiamen Univ, Malaysia)
The Boat Race Murder, Robert Egerton Swartwout's only mystery novel, presents the reader with a plethora of literary references to the previous century of detective stories and locked-room mysteries. Through these references, Swartwout misdirects the reader to expect an intricate solution and an obscure motive for a murder, which is, in fact, simple and committed for sordid financial gain.

Lost Allusions: The Changing Codes of P.D. James
MARJORIE GARBER (Harvard Univ)
Like Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, and Josephine Tey, P.D. James sometimes used literary allusions in her book titles and plots. Over time, however, the signifying codes in her work began to change, first to hidden "Easter egg" messages and "true crime" references, and finally to modern scientific markers like DNA.

The Gothic and the Girl Detective: Unpacking the Queered) Signification of Nancy Drew
DOROTHY CALABRO (Auburn Univ)
This essay connects the gothic and the queer in the original Nancy Drew mysteries with modern, queer(ed) adaptations to the Nancy Drew universe, including Mabel Maney's Nancy Clue series and Kelly Thompson's Nancy Drew comics. The rift between the represented ideology of the original Nancy Drew mysteries and the gothic truths they hide are embodied in the interpretations and adaptations of queer audiences.

"No Past": Feminism, Queerness, and Colonialism in The Likeness
MIRANDA STEEGE (Univ of Pittsburgh)
Tana French's novel The Likeness utilizes key elements of the mystery genre to test out modes of living that offer solutions to heteropatriarchal violence. These modes ultimately fail because they lack an adequate anticolonial, anticapitalist politics.

People Are Like Homes: Duality in the Novels of Louise Penny
RACHEL SCHAFFER (Montana State Univ Billings)
In her Three Pines series, Louise Penny uses the concept of duality in characters and settings to create a deeply optimistic vision of human nature, demonstrating that it is possible to resolve both internal and external conflicts so that people can live in harmony with themselves and with each other, despite their differences.

Postmodern Crime Fiction in Modernist Form: Reading Palahniuk's Fight Club as Detective Fiction
PHIL HALTON (Univ of Gloucestershire, UK)
This essay argues that Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club adopts postmodern theories and aesthetics yet is more aligned with modernist conventions. Fight Club destabilizes grand narratives, critiques hyperreality, and employs rhizomatic structures to reflect the decentralization of power and meaning. Palahniuk strains the genre's conventions to accommodate postmodern critique without discarding them.

REVIEWS
Rebecca Josephy, ed. Magic, Magicians and Detective Fiction: Essays on Intersecting Modes of Mystery
DANIEL STASHOWER

Robert Morgan. Fallen Angel: The Life of Edgar Allan Poe
CYNTHIA S. HAMILTON (Liverpool Hope Univ)

Mary Fortune, auth.; Lucy Sussex and Megan Brown, eds. Nothing but Murders and Bloodshed and Hanging
NICHOLAS BIRNS (New York Univ)

Thomas W. Kniesche. Investigating Crime in a Time of War: Historical Crime Fiction and the Representation of Fascism
TARA KRAFT-AINSWORTH (Univ of Georgia)

Ashley Lawson. On Edge: Gender and Genre in the Work of Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith, and Leigh Brackett
K.A. LAITY

Charlotte Beyer. Crime Fiction in the Age of #Me'Too
KATRINA YOUNES (Trent Univ, Canada)

Devin Fromm. Detective Fiction on the Case of Community: The Mystery at the Heart of the Modern
ASHLEY LAWSON (West Virginia Wesleyan College)

New from McFarland: History of Dial M for Murder.

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth Foxwell) — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 08:07:00 +0000

Hot off the presses at McFarland and Co. is Frederick Knott and Dial M for Murder, in which playwright Richard Weill traces the history of the Edgar-winning play. Included are discussions of Knott's great difficulties in writing Dial M, the Alfred Hitchcock and Andrew Davis films, international productions, and other works by Knott such as Wait Until Dark and Write Me a Murder.

Best Part of the Book podcast: Clues: A Journal of Detection.

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth Foxwell) — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 08:07:00 +0000

On McFarland's Best Part of the Book podcast, executive editor Caroline Reitz (John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY/CUNY Graduate Center) and I chat with host Mark Perzel about Clues: A Journal of Detection. Topics include the appeal of mysteries, the history of the journal, revelations that first appeared in the journal, and the most recent issue on disability and detective fiction. Those who would like to subscribe to the journal can receive a 25% discount with the coupon code BESTPART (email journals [at] mcfarlandpub.com).

Film Music Friday: Alfred Hitchcock.

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth Foxwell) — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 08:05:00 +0000

The latest episode of Kansas Public Radio's Film Music Friday focuses on music in the films of Alfred Hitchcock, including The Man Who Knew Too Much (composer: Bernard Herrmann), North by Northwest (composer: Bernard Herrmann), Psycho (composer: Bernard Herrmann), Rear Window (composer: Franz Waxman), To Catch a Thief (composer: Lyn Murray), and Vertigo (composer: Bernard Herrmann).

2026 Dove Awardee: Stewart King.

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth Foxwell) — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 08:07:00 +0000

Stewart King's Murder in the
Multinational State: Crime Fiction
from Spain (Routledge, 2019)

The latest recipient of the Dove Award—which is awarded by the Popular Culture Association's Mystery and Detective Fiction Area and recognizes contributions to the serious study of mystery, detective, and crime fiction—is Stewart King, associate professor of European languages at Monash University (Melbourne, Australia). King, a specialist in Spanish and Catalan crime fiction, has edited or coedited 6 books (e.g., the Cambridge Companion to World Crime Fiction, 2022), produced 35 book chapters and 28 articles, as well as coedits the journal Crime Fiction Studies. He previously served on the editorial board of Clues: A Journal of Detection (I am managing editor of the journal).

The award is named for past PCA president and distinguished mystery scholar George N. Dove (1913–2003). Past recipients of the Dove Award include Frankie Y. Bailey (University at Albany, SUNY), J.C. Bernthal, Martin Edwards, Barry Forshaw, Douglas G. Greene, P. D. James, Christine Jackson, H. R. F. Keating, Margaret Kinsman, Maureen Reddy (Rhode Island College), Janet Rudolph, J. K. Van Dover (Lincoln University), and yours truly.

Milwaukee Rep's Agatha Christie Festival.

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth Foxwell) — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 09:07:00 +0000

Agatha Christie, Sept 1964. Dutch National Archives

Milwaukee Rep is hosting an Agatha Christie Festival through June, which includes the following:

A display in the Rep's Sandra & William Haack Galleria that traces Christie's life and career.
A March 31 screening of Death on the Nile (1978).
A free April 7 event, "The Enduring Mystery of Agatha Christie from Page to Stage," at Boswell Book Co. with Christopher Chan of Agatha Christie Ltd. and Laura Braza, director of the Rep production of And Then There Were None.
Whodunit Wednesdays, a reading series in April and May at Milwaukee Public Libraries.
A Rep production of And Then There Were None (May 26–June 8, Ellen & Joe Checota Powerhouse Theater)

Score to Christie's Witness for the Prosecution (1982).

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth Foxwell) — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 09:07:00 +0000

As John Bettencourt notes in Film Score Friday, Caldera has released John Cameron's score for Agatha Christie's Witness for the Prosecution (dir. Alan Gibson, 1982). This TV production features Beau Bridges, Michael Gough, Wendy Hiller, Deborah Kerr, Donald Pleasence, Ralph Richardson, and Diana Rigg. For more information or to listen to some clips, go here.

Film music by Dmitri Tompkin.

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth Foxwell) — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 09:07:00 +0000

As Scott Bettencourt notes in Film Score Friday, Intrada has issued From New York to Hollywood: Music for Albertina Rausch and Classic Films, performed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and featuring works by composer Dmitri Tompkin for movies such as Lost Horizon and It's a Wonderful Life. Also included is "Fisherman's Jive" from the film noir D.O.A. (1949).

Edmond O'Brien in D.O.A. (1949)

New mystery audiobooks from Librivox.

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth Foxwell) — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 09:07:00 +0000

John Dickson Carr's It Walks by Night

New free audio mystery releases from Librivox.

It Walks by Night. John Dickson Carr's debut novel. Wrote the 22 Aug 1930 [Christchurch, NZ] Star, "Mr. Carr carries us along breathlessly .... this original crime story is well constructed, eminently readable, and calculated to give satisfaction to those fond of a thrill").
The Continental Op, The Maltese Falcon, and Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett. The 25 Feb. 1950 Lewiston [ME] Evening Journal mentioned that the Continental Op was based on a Pinkerton detective who worked with Hammett.
The Law of the Four Just Men by Edgar Wallace. Wrote the 3 Apr. 1926 Otago [NZ] Daily Times, "It is an illustration of Mr. Wallace's skill that he is able to cast over the story that air of verisimilitude which carries the reader along on a wave of excitement."

James Sallis, 1944–2026.

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth Foxwell) — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 09:07:00 +0000

Nathan Ashman's James Sallis:
A Companion to the Mystery Fiction

Author James Sallis died on Jan 27 at age 81. Although he might be best known for Drive (adapted as a film with Ryan Gosling and Carrie Mulligan), he had a long and distinguished career, not only in mystery fiction but also in science fiction and as a critic. There are many admirers of his Lew Griffin series (e.g., The Long Legged Fly), and he wrote a well-respected biography of Chester Himes. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Bouchercon, the Hammett Award for literary excellence in crime writing, and the Grand Prix de Littérature policière.

He wrote to me after James Sallis: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction by Nathan Ashman had won the Edgar Award for best biographical/critical work (I edited the book), expressing his appreciation for Nathan's hard work and mentioning that his email box had been filling up with congratulations after the Edgar win (It was the first Edgar win for a book in the series, although the Ian Rankin companion and the James Ellroy companion had been Edgar nominees). He also related a funny story: when he was reading the companion, he discovered to his horror that he had forgotten about three short stories discussed by Nathan, and he was in the midst of compiling a collection of his "complete" short stories. He sent an SOS to his editor, rooted around in his files, found the stories, and managed to include them in the volume. Said he, "So Nathan, and you, have to take the blame for those three."

James Sallis' biography of Chester Himes,
called "smart, conscientious, often stylish"
by Robert Polito in NYT

Poisons in Golden Age mysteries.

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth Foxwell) — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 09:07:00 +0000

Over on the Science Museum Group blog, Chloë Abley discusses poisons in Golden Age mysteries, including their use in works by Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, and Dorothy L. Sayers.

Maps in mystery fiction.

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth Foxwell) — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 09:07:00 +0000

As The Map Room blog points out, an article by Axel Bax et al. (Cornell University) in Computational Humanities Research 2025 that takes a deep dive into the presence of maps in fiction indicates—probably to no surprise of mystery fans—that "small-scale maps often were in the detective/mystery genre."

Map from Anna Katharine Green's Lost Man's Lane (1899)

Film Music Friday: Jerry Goldsmith.

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth Foxwell) — Mon, 12 Jan 2026 09:07:00 +0000

A recent episode of Kansas Public Radio's Film Music Friday featured the TV work of Jerry Goldsmith who moved from clerk-typist to composer. Selections include his work for The Man from U.N.C.L.E, The Twilight Zone, and more.

A release of music from The Man from
U.N.C.L.E. that includes Jerry Goldsmith's work

New edition of The Maltese Falcon.

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth Foxwell) — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 09:07:00 +0000

Blackstone Publishing has issued a new illustrated edition of Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon (originally published in 1930).

Map of Dorothy L. Sayers' Britain.

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth Foxwell) — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 09:07:00 +0000

New from Herb Lester Associates is Dorothy L. Sayers' Britain, a map of locations in the works of Sayers. The writer is Eric Sandberg (City University of Hong Kong), author of Dorothy L. Sayers: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction (which I edited; take 20% off the book this month with coupon code HOLIDAY25).

Other maps:
• Ian Fleming's London
• Maigret's Paris

A 1980s interview with pulp figure Howard Browne.

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth Foxwell) — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 09:07:00 +0000

Noah Beery Jr. (background) and James Garner (foreground)
in "Sleight of Hand," The Rockford Files (1975)

I came across a post on radio station KPFA of a 1980s interview with sci-fi and mystery pulp author-editor-screenwriter Howard Browne (1908–99) conducted by author Richard A. Lupoff. A collection of Browne's mysteries with PI Paul Pine is available from Haffner Press. Browne's screen credits include Banacek, Capone (film, 1975), The Fugitive, Kraft Suspense Theatre, Longstreet, Mannix, Mission: Impossible, and 77 Sunset Strip. His novel Thin Air (1954) was adapted three times: as an episode of Climax, as the episode "Sleight of Hand" for The Rockford Files, and as an episode of Simon & Simon.

Film Music Fri: Warner Bros. scores; rejected film scores.

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth Foxwell) — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 09:07:00 +0000

Eleanor Parker in Caged (1950)

Recent episodes of Kansas Public Radio's Film Music Friday feature Warner Brothers scores (including The Maltese Falcon [composer: Adolph Deutsch] and Caged [composer: Max Steiner]) and rejected film scores (including Gangs of New York and The Getaway).

December 15 Zoom event on the work of Agatha Christie.

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth Foxwell) — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 09:07:00 +0000

On December 15, Nicholas Birns and his mother, Margaret Boe Birns (both NYU), will talk about their new book, Agatha Christie Under the Magnifying Glass: Close Readings of 12 Novels, in a Zoom event. I acquired the book for McFarland and Co. and will make a few remarks. A special guest will be J.C. Bernthal, author of McFarland's Agatha Christie: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction (which I edited) and editor of The Ageless Agatha Christie: Essays on the Mysteries and the Legacy.

As Birns and Birns note in the preface, they set out

to examine how particular characters, phrases, contexts, and plot lines contribute to the success of Agatha Christie’s authorial compositions. But we will also look at them as they tear against the seams and beg for the scrutiny that goes outside the text as traditionally conceived. Rather than concentrating exclusively on overall themes, tropes, and effects in her oeuvre (as in Tison Pugh’s 2023 Understanding Agatha Christie), our emphasis on the uncertainties of particularity leads us to also concentrate on individual works by Christie.

Works covered in the book are The ABC Murders, A Murder Is Announced, At Bertram's Hotel, Curtain, Death Comes as the End, The Hollow, The Murder at the Vicarage, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Murder on the Orient Express, N or M?, Third Girl, and Towards Zero.

UPDATE, Dec. 16, 2025: If you missed the event, access the recording.

Note that there's a holiday sale at McFarland until the end of December; take 20 percent off with coupon code HOLIDAY25.

20 years of The Bunburyist.

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth Foxwell) — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 09:07:00 +0000

The inquiring Elizabeth Foxwell.

I missed the 20th anniversary of The Bunburyist (which occurred on November 5). I've been very busy as an editor at McFarland and Co., which—although I relish the opportunity to work on many fascinating projects dealing with subjects like women's history and mystery fiction—leaves me less time to devote to social media. I am very grateful for the many visitors who are interested in mystery history and continue to drop by. They might note that lately I've been including posts about mystery-related music (particularly film music), as I tend to find that composers often do not receive much attention for their important work.

The following are the top 10 posts on The Bunburyist based on views, and I should note that my page with links to mystery course syllabi is pretty popular as well. Do you have other favorites?

The Top 10 Posts on The Bunburyist, 2005–25:

10. "Iniquity is catching": Frank R. Stockton's The Stories of the Three Burglars (1889)

9. "Security Risk" [TV episode, narrated by Jack Webb, 1963]

8. "Iconic Detectives" exhibition at Ohio State

7. New release, Gerald Fried's crime drama music

6. Hidden Fear (film, 1957)

5. McFarland's true crime sale

4. Upcoming tribute to Rod Serling

3. "Committed" (TV episode with Alan Ladd, 1954)

2. "The Grave Grass Quivers," by MacKinlay Kantor (1931)

1. Dozen Best Detective Stories Ever Written

New Thursday Murder Club CD.

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth Foxwell) — Mon, 24 Nov 2025 09:07:00 +0000

Film Score Friday reveals that there's a new CD from Intrada available of Thomas Newman's score for The Thursday Murder Club (dir. Chris Columbus, 2025; book by Richard Osman). For more information and to hear some sample tracks, go here.

Historical marker honoring Rod Serling unveiled.

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth Foxwell) — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 09:07:00 +0000

Jesse Bethea on Columbus Underground reports on the unveiling of a new historical marker on the Antioch College campus that honors writer-producer Rod Serling, an Antioch graduate and instructor. At the ceremony, Ohio governor Mike DeWine showed a photograph of his grandfather Albert Little teaching Serling.

New film music releases: Gerald Fried, Bernard Herrmann.

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth Foxwell) — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 09:07:00 +0000

Film Score Friday brings news of the following new releases:

• Gerald Fried's score for What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice? (dir. Lee H. Katzin and Bernard Girard, 1969; based on Ursula Curtiss' The Forbidden Garden)

• The Devil and Bernard Herrmann, which includes selections from his score for Obsession (dir. Brian De Palma, 1976)

• Bernard Herrmann's score for Psycho (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1960), performed by the National Philharmonic Orchestra in 1975 and directed by the composer

Film Music Friday: More music from film noir.

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth Foxwell) — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 09:07:00 +0000

Joseph Cotten, left, with Jack Moss in Eric Ambler's
Journey into Fear (1943)

A recent episode of Kansas Public Radio's Film Music Friday focused on music from film noir, including selections from Double Indemnity (composer Miklós Rózsa, 1944); Journey into Fear (composer Roy Webb, 1943); Laura (composer David Raksin, 1944); Please Murder Me (composer Albert Glasser, 1956); Sorry, Wrong Number (composer Franz Waxman, 1948); and more.

A history of early female judges.

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth Foxwell) — Mon, 27 Oct 2025 08:07:00 +0000

Illustration of suffragist and lawyer Catharine Waugh
McCulloch, elected as a justice of the
peace in Illinois in 1907
(Long Valley [ID] Advocate, 16 May 1907)

As the Law and Literature blog notes, Elizabeth D. Katz, professor of law at the University of Florida, discusses the history of often forgotten early female judges in "'May It Please Her Honor': The United States' First Women Judges, 1870–1930" in the Washington University Law Review. Some even obtained positions before passage of the 19th Amendment that granted US female citizens the right to vote.