List Of Works By H. C. McNeile
Cyril McNeile, MC (born Herman Cyril McNeile; 1888–1937) was a British soldier and author. During the First World War he wrote short stories based on his experiences in the trenches with the Royal Engineers. These were published in the Daily Mail under the pseudonym Sapper, the nickname of his regiment, and were later published as collections through Hodder & Stoughton. 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; these were also subsequently collected together and published. During the course of the war, McNeile wrote more than 80 collected and uncollected stories.
US cover of No Man's Land, published in 1917
First edition cover of Bulldog Drummond
Poster for the 1922 film Bulldog Drummond, based on McNeile's play of the same name
McNeile continued writing after he left the army in 1919, although he stopped writing war stories and began to publish thrillers. In 1920 he published Bulldog Drummond, whose eponymous hero became his best-known creation. The character was based on McNeile himself, his idea of an English gentleman and his friend Gerard Fairlie. McNeile wrote ten Bulldog Drummond novels, as well as three plays and a screenplay.
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. McNeile was one of the most successful British popular authors of the inter-war period, before his death in 1937 from throat cancer, which has been attributed to being caught in a gas attack in the war.
Short story collections
| Title | Year of first publication | First edition publisher | Name or pseudonym used | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Lieutenant and Others | 1915 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | |
| Sergeant Michael Cassidy, R.E. | 1915 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | |
| Men, Women, and Guns | 1916 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | |
| No Man's Land | 1917 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | |
| The Human Touch | 1918 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | |
| The Man in Ratcatcher, and other stories | 1921 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | McNeile | |
| The Dinner Club | 1923 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | McNeile | |
| Out of the Blue | 1925 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | |
| Jim Brent | 1926 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | |
| Word of Honour | 1926 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | |
| Shorty Bill | 1927 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | |
| The Saving Clause | 1927 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | |
| When Carruthers Laughed | 1927 | George H. Doran Company (New York) | McNeile | |
| John Walters | 1927 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | |
| Sapper's War Stories | 1930 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | |
| The Finger of Fate | 1930 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | |
| Ronald Standish | 1933 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | |
| 51 Stories | 1934 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | |
| Ask For Ronald Standish | 1936 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | |
| The Best Short Stories | 1984 | Littlehampton Book Services (Littlehampton) | Sapper |
Novels
| Title | Year of first publication | First edition publisher | Name or pseudonym used | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mufti | 1919 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | McNeile | |
| Bull-Dog Drummond | 1920 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | McNeile | |
| The Black Gang | 1922 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | McNeile | |
| Jim Maitland | 1923 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | McNeile | |
| The Third Round | 1924 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | McNeile | |
| The Final Count | 1926 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | |
| The Female of the Species | 1928 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | |
| Temple Tower | 1929 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | |
| Tiny Carteret | 1930 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | |
| The Island of Terror | 1931 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | |
| The Return of Bull-Dog Drummond | 1932 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | |
| Knock-Out | 1933 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | |
| Bull-Dog Drummond at Bay | 1935 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | |
| Challenge | 1937 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper | |
| Bulldog Drummond—His Four Rounds with Carl Peterson | 1967 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Sapper |
Others
| 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 | |
| Bulldog Drummond: A Play in Four Acts | 1921 | Samuel French Ltd (London) | Play | Sapper | Co-published with Gerald du Maurier | |
| Bulldog Drummond | 1929 | Unpublished | Screenplay | Sapper | Writing credit; based on the 1921 play of the same name | |
| The Way Out | 1930 | Unpublished | Play | Sapper | Staged in January 1930 | |
| The Best of O. Henry | 1930 | Hodder & Stoughton (London) | Short story collection | McNeile, as editor | Collection of stories by O. Henry | |
| Bulldog Jack | 1935 | Unpublished | Screenplay | McNeile | With Gerard Fairlie, J.O.C. Orton and others; written for Gaumont British | |
| Bulldog Drummond Hits Out | 1937 | Unpublished | Play | McNeile | Staged in 1937 |
Notes and references
Notes
- ^ 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".
- ^ Published in the UK in 1934 by Hodder & Stoughton under the pseudonym Sapper.
- ^ Omnibus edition, containing Bull-Dog Drummond, The Black Gang, The Third Round and The Final Count.
References
- ^ Green 2004.
- ^ Treadwell 2001, p. 111.
- ^ Bourn 1990, p. 25.
- ^ Jaillant 2011, p. 140.
- ^ Jaillant 2011, p. 150.
- ^ C. N. (14 June 1916). "The Making of an Officer". The Times. London. p. 9.
- ^ Bertens 1990, p. 51.
- ^ DelFattore 1988, p. 223.
- ^ Jaillant 2011, p. 137.
- ^ Bourn 1990, p. 31.
- ^ 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.
- ^ DelFattore 1988, pp. 221–222.
- ^ Treadwell 2001, p. 194.
- ^ Jaillant 2011, p. 145.
- ^ DelFattore 1988, p. 221.
- ^ DelFattore 1988, p. 225.
- ^ DelFattore 1988, p. 224.
- ^ 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
Books
- 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
- 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
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.
