Cyril McNeile, MC (born Herman Cyril McNeile; 1888–1937) was a British soldier and author.[1] During the First World War he wrote short stories based on his experiences in the trenches with the Royal Engineers.[2] These were published in the Daily Mail under the pseudonym Sapper, the nickname of his regiment,[3] and were later published as collections through Hodder & Stoughton.[4] McNeile also wrote a series of articles titled The Making of an Officer, which appeared under the initials C. N., in five issues of The Times between 8 and 14 June 1916;[5][6] these were also subsequently collected together and published.[5] During the course of the war, McNeile wrote more than 80 collected and uncollected stories.[7]
| Novels↙ | 15 |
|---|---|
| Articles↙ | 1 |
| Stories↙ | 20 |
| Collections↙ | 1 |
| Plays↙ | 3 |
| Scripts↙ | 1 |
| Books edited↙ | 1 |
| References and footnotes | |
McNeile continued writing after he left the army in 1919, although he stopped writing war stories and began to publish thrillers.[8] In 1920 he published Bulldog Drummond, whose eponymous hero became his best-known creation.[9] The character was based on McNeile himself, his idea of an English gentleman and his friend Gerard Fairlie.[8][a] McNeile wrote ten Bulldog Drummond novels, as well as three plays and a screenplay.[11][12]
McNeile interspersed his Drummond work with other novels and story collections, including two characters who appeared as protagonists in their own works, Jim Maitland and Ronald Standish.[13][14] McNeile was one of the most successful British popular authors of the inter-war period,[15] before his death in 1937 from throat cancer, which has been attributed to being caught in a gas attack in the war.[1]
Short story collections
edit
| Title[16] | Year of first publication | First edition publisher | Name or pseudonym used | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Lieutenant and Others | 1915 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | [9] |
| Sergeant Michael Cassidy, R.E. | 1915 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | [9] |
| Men, Women, and Guns | 1916 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | [9] |
| No Man's Land | 1917 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | [9] |
| The Human Touch | 1918 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | [9] |
| The Man in Ratcatcher, and other stories | 1921 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | McNeile | [17] |
| The Dinner Club | 1923 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | McNeile | [17] |
| Out of the Blue | 1925 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | [17] |
| Jim Brent | 1926 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | [18] |
| Word of Honour | 1926 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | [17] |
| Shorty Bill | 1927 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | [18] |
| The Saving Clause | 1927 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | [17] |
| When Carruthers Laughed | 1927 | George H. Doran Company (New York) | McNeile | [17][b] |
| John Walters | 1927 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | [18] |
| Sapper's War Stories | 1930 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | [4] |
| The Finger of Fate | 1930 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | [17] |
| Ronald Standish | 1933 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | [20] |
| 51 Stories | 1934 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | [17] |
| Ask For Ronald Standish | 1936 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | [20] |
| The Best Short Stories | 1984 | Littlehampton Book Services (Littlehampton) | Sapper | [17] |
Novels
edit
| Title[16] | Year of first publication | First edition publisher | Name or pseudonym used | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mufti | 1919 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | McNeile | [8] |
| Bull-Dog Drummond | 1920 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | McNeile | [8] |
| The Black Gang | 1922 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | McNeile | [21] |
| Jim Maitland | 1923 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | McNeile | [22] |
| The Third Round | 1924 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | McNeile | [22] |
| The Final Count | 1926 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | [22] |
| The Female of the Species | 1928 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | [22] |
| Temple Tower | 1929 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | [22] |
| Tiny Carteret | 1930 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | [22] |
| The Island of Terror | 1931 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | [22] |
| The Return of Bull-Dog Drummond | 1932 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | [22] |
| Knock-Out | 1933 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | [20] |
| Bull-Dog Drummond at Bay | 1935 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | [20] |
| Challenge | 1937 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | [20] |
| Bulldog Drummond—His Four Rounds with Carl Peterson | 1967 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | [22][c] |
Others
edit
| Title | Year of first publication | First edition publisher | Category | Name or pseudonym used | Notes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Making of an Officer | 1916 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Newspaper articles | C. N. | Collection of articles first published in The Times | [5] |
| Bulldog Drummond: A Play in Four Acts | 1921 | Samuel French Ltd (London) | Play | Sapper | Co-published with Gerald du Maurier | [19] |
| Bulldog Drummond | 1929 | Unpublished | Screenplay | Sapper | Writing credit; based on the 1921 play of the same name | [24][25] |
| The Way Out | 1930 | Unpublished | Play | Sapper | Staged in January 1930 | [11] |
| The Best of O. Henry | 1930 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Short story collection | McNeile, as editor | Collection of stories by O. Henry | [26] |
| Bulldog Jack | 1935 | Unpublished | Screenplay | McNeile | With Gerard Fairlie, J.O.C. Orton and others; written for Gaumont British | [27] |
| Bulldog Drummond Hits Out | 1937 | Unpublished | Play | McNeile | Staged in 1937 | [11] |
Notes and references
editNotes
- ^ Bourn disputes the Fairlie background to the character, noting that it was Fairlie who made the claim, although "he was still at school when Sapper created his ... hero".[10]
- ^ Published in the UK in 1934 by Hodder & Stoughton under the pseudonym Sapper.[19]
- ^ Omnibus edition, containing Bull-Dog Drummond, The Black Gang, The Third Round and The Final Count.[23]
References
- ^ a b Green 2004.
- ^ Treadwell 2001, p. 111.
- ^ Bourn 1990, p. 25.
- ^ a b Jaillant 2011, p. 140.
- ^ a b c Jaillant 2011, p. 150.
- ^ C. N. (14 June 1916). "The Making of an Officer". The Times. London. p. 9.
- ^ Bertens 1990, p. 51.
- ^ a b c d DelFattore 1988, p. 223.
- ^ a b c d e f Jaillant 2011, p. 137.
- ^ Bourn 1990, p. 31.
- ^ a b c DelFattore 1988, p. 226.
- ^ Neuburg 1983, p. 41.
- ^ Treadwell 2001, p. 152.
- ^ Usborne 1983, p. 178.
- ^ Fowler, Christopher (1 April 2012). "Invisibile Ink: No 117 – Sexton Blake and Bulldog Drummond". The Independent. London. p. 66.
- ^ a b DelFattore 1988, pp. 221–222.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Treadwell 2001, p. 194.
- ^ a b c Jaillant 2011, p. 145.
- ^ a b DelFattore 1988, p. 221.
- ^ a b c d e DelFattore 1988, p. 225.
- ^ DelFattore 1988, p. 224.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Treadwell 2001, p. 193.
- ^ Treadwell 2001, pp. 193–194.
- ^ "Credits: Bulldog Drummond". Film & TV Database. British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 23 April 2013. Retrieved 1 February 2013.
- ^ Treadwell 2001, p. 22.
- ^ "The Best of O. Henry. One hundred of his stories chosen by Sapper". British Library. Retrieved 31 December 2012.
- ^ DelFattore 1988, p. 222.
Bibliography
editBooks
edit- Bertens, Hans (1990). "A Society of Murderers Run on Sound Conservative Lines: The Life and Times of Sapper's Bulldog Drummond". In Bloom, Clive (ed.). Twentieth-Century Suspense: The Thriller Comes of Age. Basingstoke: The Macmillan Press. ISBN 978-0-333-47592-8.
- DelFattore, Joan (1988). "Herman Cyril McNeile (Sapper)". In Benstock, Bernard; Staley, Thomas (eds.). British Mystery Writers, 1920–1939. Detroit: Gale Research. ISBN 978-0-7876-3072-0.
- Neuburg, Victor E. (1983). The Popular Press Companion to Popular Literature. Bowling Green: Bowling Green State University Popular Press. ISBN 978-0-87972-233-3.
- Usborne, Richard (1983). Clubland Heroes: A Nostalgic Study of the Recurrent Characters in the Romantic Fiction of Dornford Yates, John Buchan and "Sapper". London: Hutchinson. ISBN 978-0-09-152821-8.
- Treadwell, Lawrence P. (2001). The Bulldog Drummond Encyclopedia. Jefferson: McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-0-7864-0769-9.
Journals
edit- Bourn, J. D. (October 1990). "Sapper: Creator of Bull-Dog Drummond". The Book and Magazine Collector. No. 79. UPC 977-0-9528-6001-4.
- Green, Jonathon (2004). "McNeile, (Herman) Cyril [pseud. Sapper]". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/34810. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- Jaillant, Lise (2011). "Sapper, Hodder & Stoughton, and the Popular Literature of the Great War". Book History. 14. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISSN 1098-7371.
External links
edit
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
- Works by H.C. McNeile at Open Library
- Works by H.C. McNeile at Project Gutenberg
- Works by Herman Cyril McNeile at Faded Page (Canada)
- Works by or about H. C. McNeile at the Internet Archive
- Works by H. C. McNeile at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- Images of the original dust jackets on McNeile's books.
- Portraits of McNeile at the National Portrait Gallery, London.