Hewitt & Dorrington Private Detectives: the Complete Casebooks

A bumper helping of the detective stories of Arthur Morrison

British author, Arthur Morrison was a writer and journalist principally known for his authoritative work on Japanese art, novels of working class life in the East End of London and collections of detective fiction featuring his two well-known characters, the private investigators Martin Hewitt and Horace Dorrington. Martin Hewitt, Morrison’s first detective creation, has been described by a critic as ‘a low key, lower class version of Sherlock Holmes’, which allows more latitude for the character than it imposes limitations though it places him squarely in the heroic mould. By contrast Horace Dorrington has been described as ‘respected but deeply corrupt’. This anti-hero is an ‘unrepentant sociopath who is willing to resort to theft, fraud, blackmail or even murder’ to earn his dishonest living. All those considerations offer, of course, highly encouraging prospects of reading enjoyment for aficionados of crime fiction. This substantial Leonaur edition contains all the Hewitt and Dorrington stories in one volume. Morrison was elected a member of the Royal Society of Literature in 1924. When he died in 1945 he left his art collection to the British Museum.

Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket.