This section contains 1,624 words (approx. 6 pages at 300 words per page) |
![]() |
Dictionary of Literary Biography on Ethel Lina White
Ethel Lina White belongs ineluctably to what has been called derisively "The Had-I-But-Known School" of mystery fiction, with its endangered heroine, its closed and threatening circle (which in her best novel is not an old dark house but a train), its association of terror with the commonplace, and its resolution in martial pairing. The opening of her best novel, The Wheel Spins (1936), suggests most of these elements: "The day before the disaster, Iris Carr had her first premonition of danger. She was used to the protection of a crowd.... Their constant presence tended to create the illusion that she moved in a large circle.... The crowd had swooped down on a beautiful village of picturesque squalor, tucked away in a remote corner of Europe.... On this holiday she heard Pan's pipes, but had no experience of the kick of his hairy hindquarters."
Little information on White's personal life...
This section contains 1,624 words (approx. 6 pages at 300 words per page) |
![]() |