Josephine Tey (1896–1952)
Author of The Daughter of Time
About the Author
Josephine Tey is a pseudonym used by Elizabeth Mackintosh. She was born in 1896 in Inverness and died in 1952. She is a Scottish author best known for her mystery novels. She attended Inverness Royal Academy and then Anstey Physical Training College in Erdington, a suburb of Birmingham. She taught show more physical training at various schools in England and Scotland, but in 1926 she had to return to Inverness to care for her invalid father. There she began her career as a writer. In five of the mystery novels, the hero is Scotland Yard Inspector Alan Grant. The most famous of these is The Daughter of Time, in which Grant, laid up in hospital, has friends research reference books and contemporary documents so that he can puzzle out the mystery of whether King Richard III of England murdered his nephews, the Princes in the Tower. Grant comes to the firm conclusion that King Richard was totally innocent of the death of the Princes. In 1990, The Daughter of Time was selected by the British Crime Writers' Association as the greatest mystery novel of all time; The Franchise Affair was 11th on the same list of 100 books. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Works by Josephine Tey
Four, Five & Six by Tey: The Daughter of Time, The Singing Sands, A Shilling for Candles (1958) 143 copies
The Josephine Tey Collection: The Man in the Queue / A Shilling for Candles / The Franchise Affair / To Love and Be… (2023) 9 copies
Remember Caesar 2 copies
Leith Sands 1 copy
The Staff-Room 1 copy
The Expensive Halo 1 copy
Plays 3 1 copy
Plays 2 1 copy
The Pen of My Aunt 1 copy
Sweet Coz 1 copy
Three Mrs. Madderleys 1 copy
The Mother of Masé 1 copy
Ultimate Mystery Collection 1 copy
Barnharrow 1 copy
Clarion Call 1 copy
Reckoning 1 copy
Sara 1 copy
Rahab 1 copy
Mrs Fry Has a Visitor 1 copy
Lady Charing Is Cross 1 copy
Associated Works
Great Mystery Books, 10 Volumes (Journey into Fear, The 39 Steps, And Then There Were None, Maltese Falcon, The Nine… (1967) — Contributor — 5 copies
Brat Farrar | The Brading Collection | The Bride Regrets | Make Haste to Live (1950) — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Mackintosh, Elizabeth
- Other names
- Daviot, Gordon
Tey, Josephine - Birthdate
- 1896-07-25
- Date of death
- 1952-02-13
- Burial location
- cremated, ashes scattered
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- UK
- Country (for map)
- Scotland, UK
- Birthplace
- Inverness, Scotland, UK
- Place of death
- London, England, UK
- Cause of death
- liver cancer
- Places of residence
- Birmingham, Warwickshire, England, UK
- Education
- Royal Academy
Anstey Physical Training College (1915-1918) - Occupations
- teacher
crime writer
novelist
playwright
author - Organizations
- Voluntary Aid Detachment
- Agent
- Georgia Glover (David Higham Associates) - estate
- Short biography
- Josephine Tey, birth name Elizabeth Mackintosh, was a Scottish-born novelist and playwright. She wrote some of the most acclaimed mysteries in the English language and her books, including the Alan Grant series, are still popular today. She attended the Anstey Physical Training College in Birmingham, England and became a physical education instructor before publishing her first short fiction in periodicals such as the English Review. Her first novel appeared under the pseudonym Gordon Daviot in 1929. Her best known work, The Daughter of Time (1951), is still widely admired not just as a defense of Richard III of England but also as a study of the nature and practice of history writing itself.
Members
Discussions
NOVEMBER Read - SPOILERS THREAD - Daughter of Time in The Green Dragon (July 2023)
NOVEMBER READ - NO SPOILERS - Daughter of Time in The Green Dragon (November 2014)
Josephine Tey in British & Irish Crime Fiction (April 2014)
***Group Read: Brat Farrar (Spoilers) in 75 Books Challenge for 2010 (April 2010)
***Group Read: Brat Farrar (Spoiler-free) in 75 Books Challenge for 2010 (March 2010)
Reviews
The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey
A young woman comes forward with a story of kidnapping and servitude, and an accusation directed at a mother and daughter occupying a property with a name in the community. The way it all shakes out is thrilling, humane, and comic! Nice to read a mystery without a murder at the center sometimes. I dug this even more than The Daughter of Time, the only other Tey I've read. Definitely seems like checking out more would be worthwhile.
Inspector Grant must find out who the victim of a stabbing in a theatre queue was to have any hope of finding the murderer.
I didn't really get engrossed in this early example of a police procedural but I would be interested to read more from the author.
I didn't really get engrossed in this early example of a police procedural but I would be interested to read more from the author.
'The Franchise Affair' is now my favourite Josephine Tey novel. I loved the writing, the originality of the story and the deep insights into characters who all came to feel real to me.
The story is deeply embedded in the culture of rural England as it was a few years after the end of World War II, yet the novel felt modern and fresh.
The quality of the prose pulled me into the story from the first page. Tey effortlessly captured the character of a small English Market Town that has recently been through some hard times but whose inhabitants have never doubted that they would muddle through somehow.
The story is told mostly through the eyes of Robert Blair, a respected local solicitor leading a long-established firm. He is a nice but habitually dull man who is content, in his forties to have an unchallenging, unchanging professional life. He has never married. His household is maintained by his aunt. His life is one of pleasant, unvarying routine. He is a man who blends so well with his environment that he seems to embody the decent but complacent, slightly stagnant spirit of the town. Then, an unexpected phone call at the end of an ordinary day drops him down the rabbit hole that will become known to the public as The Franchise Affair. What follows disrupts his routine and robs him of his equilibrium. It tests his values and requires him to choose a side and take a risk.
Despite what is implied by the publisher's synopsis, 'The Franchise Affair' is not a thriller or a detective story. It is a beautifully written, civilised, empathetic account of the consequences of vicious lies aimed at the vulnerable.
It isn't a novel where the main challenge is to decide whether or not the alleged kidnapping happened but rather one that asks the reader to consider what a decent man should do when faced with uncertainty, doubt and risk.
'The Franchise Affair' is, nevertheless, a lively book. There are dramatic courtroom scenes. There are instances of violence and vandalism prompted by hate and malice arising from the charged atmosphere around the accusations made against the two women who live at The Franchise. There are vitriolic letters in the gutter press that closely resemble the hate spewed out by keyboard warriors on social media today. Hate, it seems, is immutable. There are also instances of kindness and protection prompted by people whose values insist on decent behaviour. values that req people should be treated decently.
I became completely engaged with the people in the book. I was more concerned with them and what they were going through than with whether or not the kidnapping had happened or even whether or not the women would be found guilty. The plot kept my interest but the people captured my emotions.
I recommend the audiobook version of 'The Franchise Affair'. Carole Boyd's narration perfectly captured the tone of the prose and helped bring the characters to life.… (more)
The story is deeply embedded in the culture of rural England as it was a few years after the end of World War II, yet the novel felt modern and fresh.
The quality of the prose pulled me into the story from the first page. Tey effortlessly captured the character of a small English Market Town that has recently been through some hard times but whose inhabitants have never doubted that they would muddle through somehow.
The story is told mostly through the eyes of Robert Blair, a respected local solicitor leading a long-established firm. He is a nice but habitually dull man who is content, in his forties to have an unchallenging, unchanging professional life. He has never married. His household is maintained by his aunt. His life is one of pleasant, unvarying routine. He is a man who blends so well with his environment that he seems to embody the decent but complacent, slightly stagnant spirit of the town. Then, an unexpected phone call at the end of an ordinary day drops him down the rabbit hole that will become known to the public as The Franchise Affair. What follows disrupts his routine and robs him of his equilibrium. It tests his values and requires him to choose a side and take a risk.
Despite what is implied by the publisher's synopsis, 'The Franchise Affair' is not a thriller or a detective story. It is a beautifully written, civilised, empathetic account of the consequences of vicious lies aimed at the vulnerable.
It isn't a novel where the main challenge is to decide whether or not the alleged kidnapping happened but rather one that asks the reader to consider what a decent man should do when faced with uncertainty, doubt and risk.
'The Franchise Affair' is, nevertheless, a lively book. There are dramatic courtroom scenes. There are instances of violence and vandalism prompted by hate and malice arising from the charged atmosphere around the accusations made against the two women who live at The Franchise. There are vitriolic letters in the gutter press that closely resemble the hate spewed out by keyboard warriors on social media today. Hate, it seems, is immutable. There are also instances of kindness and protection prompted by people whose values insist on decent behaviour. values that req people should be treated decently.
I became completely engaged with the people in the book. I was more concerned with them and what they were going through than with whether or not the kidnapping had happened or even whether or not the women would be found guilty. The plot kept my interest but the people captured my emotions.
I recommend the audiobook version of 'The Franchise Affair'. Carole Boyd's narration perfectly captured the tone of the prose and helped bring the characters to life.… (more)
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Awards
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 51
- Also by
- 11
- Members
- 17,989
- Popularity
- #1,223
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 660
- ISBNs
- 443
- Languages
- 16
- Favorited
- 90
