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The Last Tresilians
383 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1963
1 person is currently reading
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About the author
J.I.M. Stewart
66 books9 followersFull name: John Innes MacKintosh Stewart
Published mysteries under the pen name of Michael Innes.
Stewart was the son of Elizabeth Jane (née Clark) and John Stewart of Nairn. His father was a lawyer and director of Education in the city of Edinburgh. Stewart attended Edinburgh Academy, where Robert Louis Stevenson had been a pupil for a short time, and later studied English literature at Oriel College, Oxford. In 1929 he went to Vienna to study psychoanalysis. He was lecturer in English at the University of Leeds from 1930 to 1935, and then became Jury Professor of English in the University of Adelaide, South Australia.
He returned to the United Kingdom to become Lecturer in English at the Queen's University of Belfast from 1946 to 1948. In 1949 he became a Student of Christ Church, Oxford. By the time of his retirement in 1973, he was a professor of the university.
Using the pseudonym Michael Innes, he wrote about forty crime novels between 1936 and 1986. Innes's detective novels are playfully highbrow, rich in allusions to English literature and to Renaissance art. Sinuous, flexible and effortlessly elegant, Stewart's prose is refreshingly free of all influence by Strunk & White. The somewhat ponderous writing style and analysis of character, particularly in the early novels, is frequently Henry Jamesian. The best-known of Innes's detective creations is Sir John Appleby (originally Inspector John Appleby) of Scotland Yard, who is a feature of multiple books. Other novels also feature the amateur but nonetheless effective sleuth, painter and Royal Academician, Charles Honeybath. The two detectives meet in "Appleby and Honeybath." Some of the later stories feature Appleby's son Bobby as sleuth.
Stewart also wrote studies of Rudyard Kipling, Joseph Conrad, and Thomas Hardy. His last publication was his autobiography Myself and Michael Innes (1987).
In 2007, his estate transferred all of Stewart's copyrights and other legal rights to Owatonna Media.
Published mysteries under the pen name of Michael Innes.
Stewart was the son of Elizabeth Jane (née Clark) and John Stewart of Nairn. His father was a lawyer and director of Education in the city of Edinburgh. Stewart attended Edinburgh Academy, where Robert Louis Stevenson had been a pupil for a short time, and later studied English literature at Oriel College, Oxford. In 1929 he went to Vienna to study psychoanalysis. He was lecturer in English at the University of Leeds from 1930 to 1935, and then became Jury Professor of English in the University of Adelaide, South Australia.
He returned to the United Kingdom to become Lecturer in English at the Queen's University of Belfast from 1946 to 1948. In 1949 he became a Student of Christ Church, Oxford. By the time of his retirement in 1973, he was a professor of the university.
Using the pseudonym Michael Innes, he wrote about forty crime novels between 1936 and 1986. Innes's detective novels are playfully highbrow, rich in allusions to English literature and to Renaissance art. Sinuous, flexible and effortlessly elegant, Stewart's prose is refreshingly free of all influence by Strunk & White. The somewhat ponderous writing style and analysis of character, particularly in the early novels, is frequently Henry Jamesian. The best-known of Innes's detective creations is Sir John Appleby (originally Inspector John Appleby) of Scotland Yard, who is a feature of multiple books. Other novels also feature the amateur but nonetheless effective sleuth, painter and Royal Academician, Charles Honeybath. The two detectives meet in "Appleby and Honeybath." Some of the later stories feature Appleby's son Bobby as sleuth.
Stewart also wrote studies of Rudyard Kipling, Joseph Conrad, and Thomas Hardy. His last publication was his autobiography Myself and Michael Innes (1987).
In 2007, his estate transferred all of Stewart's copyrights and other legal rights to Owatonna Media.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 24, 2016
"Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three..."
This Tardis of a book was published in 1963 and so I guess was written in the wake of the Chatterley trial. It absorbingly took me back to a Britain in which elderly peers worry about the effect of works of art on "public morals", where homosexuality is illegal, but where racism is the acceptable norm. I still found the secret behind the last Tresilians and why it's so hard to focus on what's at their core quite shocking though.
In nineteen sixty-three..."
This Tardis of a book was published in 1963 and so I guess was written in the wake of the Chatterley trial. It absorbingly took me back to a Britain in which elderly peers worry about the effect of works of art on "public morals", where homosexuality is illegal, but where racism is the acceptable norm. I still found the secret behind the last Tresilians and why it's so hard to focus on what's at their core quite shocking though.
Displaying 1 of 1 review