Donald Serrell Thomas


Donald Serrell Thomas was a British crime writer. His work primarily included Victorian-era historical, crime and detective fiction, as well as books on factual crime and criminals, in particular several academic books on the history of crime in London. He wrote a number of biographies, two volumes of poetry, and also edited volumes of poetry by John Dryden and the Pre-Raphaelites. He also wrote under the pseudonym Richard Manton.

Biography

Donald Thomas was born in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset on 18 July 1934. He was educated at Queen's College, Taunton, before completing his National Service in the Royal Air Force and then going up to Balliol College, Oxford. He held a personal chair as Professor Emeritus of English Literature at Cardiff University.

Early works

Thomas's earliest works seem to have been in the area of legal and historical fact, notably revised texts of Thomas Bayly Howell's collection of state trials, originally collected at the behest of William Cobbett and published between 1809 and 1826. Among his earliest forays into the world of fiction was Sergeant Verity and the Cracksman, 1974, published under the pseudonym Francis Selwyn. By the early 1980s, however, he had largely shed the Selwyn pseudonym, and began writing under his own name, Donald Thomas, switching from academic study and biography to Sherlockiana and crime fiction, all underpinned with his deep knowledge of the times and cultures of which he writes.

Biographies and fact

He wrote a number of books, mostly novels, on a variety of subjects predominantly set in Victorian England. He also wrote a small number of non-fiction works dealing with similar subjects/settings, among them a study of the Victorian underworld, and biographies of Robert Browning, the Marquis de Sade, Henry Fielding, and Lewis Carroll.
His 1978 biography of Admiral Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald highlights the characteristics of that individual which served in large part as inspiration both for C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower, and for Patrick O'Brian's Jack Aubrey. In 1994, his Hanged in Error? provided an overview/investigation as to the likely guilt of seven individuals all hanged in the UK before its abolition as a means of capital punishment in 1965. The book dealt with the cases of Timothy Evans, John Williams, Edith Thompson, , Neville Heath, Charles Jenkins, and James Hanratty.
In academic circles, he is especially well known for his studies of the criminal underworld of London from Victorian times, through World War II to the Kray twins. He wrote seven biographies and a handful of other biographical studies, as well as fictionalised biographies of individuals such as Bonnie Prince Charlie. His biography of Lewis Carroll is recommended by Representative Poetry Online, and his other biographical works can be found on many academic reading lists.
He edited volumes of Everyman's Library on poets ranging from John Dryden to the Post-Romantics, and also offered a translation of Michel Millot and Jean L'Ange's bawdy 17th century novel L'École des filles, which is described as "both an uninhibited manual of sexual technique and an erotic masterpiece of the first order" on its back cover.

Fiction

In fiction terms, he is perhaps best known for his more recent works, in particular a series of Sherlock Holmes pastiches, beginning with 1997's The Secret Cases of Sherlock Holmes. He has also written a number of other titles, and three series featuring the main characters of:

His other novels include The Raising of Lizzie Meek, "based on the scandals surrounding the Victorian miracle-worker Father Ignatius of Capel-y-ffin". Thomas is represented by Bill Hamilton of A.M. Heath & Company, Ltd.

Later life and death

Having retired from Cardiff University, he remained affiliated there, as an Associate Research Professor in the School of English, Communication and Philosophy. In 2005, as Personal Chair in the School of English, Communication and Philosophy at Cardiff University, he "donated a selection of his personal archive of research papers, used in writing his series of acclaimed books on the Underworld in Victorian and World War II eras to the University 's Special Collections and Archives."
Some of his last works included a study on censorship in modern Britain, reviewed as "provocative, timely and disturbing" by Iain Finlayson in The Times.
Thomas died on 20 January 2022, at the age of 87.

Awards and nominations

As a poet, Thomas won the Eric Gregory Award in 1962 for his collection Points of Contact.
His biography of Robert Browning A Life Within Life was a runner-up for the Whitbread Prize, and his Victorian Underworld was shortlisted for the Gold Dagger Award.

Partial bibliography

As ''Francis Selwyn''

Fiction

''Sgt. Verity''
  • Sergeant Verity and the Imperial Diamond
  • *
  • Sergeant Verity and the Cracksman
  • *
  • *Cracksman on Velvet
  • Sergeant Verity Presents His Compliments
  • *
  • Sergeant Verity and the Blood Royal
  • *
  • Sergeant Verity and the Swell Mob
  • *
  • ''The Hangman's Child''
    Other?
  • ''Villa Rosa''

    Non-fiction

  • Hitler's Englishman: The Crime of Lord Haw-Haw
  • *
  • Rotten to the Core?: The Life and Death of Neville Heath
  • Gangland: The Case of Bentley and Craig
  • *''Nothing But Revenge: The Case of Bentley And Craig''

    As ''Donald (Serrell) Thomas''

Poetry

  • Points of Contact: a collection of poems, 1958–1961 65pp.
  • Welcome to the Grand Hotel 68pp.

    Fiction

''Alfred Swain''
  • Belladonna: A Lewis Carroll Nightmare
  • *Mad Hatter Summer
  • *Belladonna
  • Jekyll, Alias Hyde: A Variation
  • *
  • The Ripper's Apprentice
  • *
  • ''The Arrest of Scotland Yard''
    ''Sonny Tarrant''
  • Dancing in the Dark
  • *
  • Red Flowers for Lady Blue
  • *
    ''Sherlock Holmes''
  • The Secret Cases of Sherlock Holmes
  • Sherlock Holmes and the Running Noose
  • *Sherlock Holmes and the Voice from the Crypt
  • The Execution of Sherlock Holmes
  • Sherlock Holmes and the King's Evil
  • Sherlock Holmes and the Ghosts of Bly
  • The Lost Casebooks of Sherlock Holmes
  • *
  • ''Death on a Pale Horse: Sherlock Holmes on Her Majesty's Secret Service''
    Other
  • Summer in the Country
  • Prince Charlie's Bluff
  • Flight of the Eagle
  • *
  • The Blindfold Game
  • Captain Wunder
  • The Day the Sun Rose Twice
  • Honour among Thieves
  • Dead Giveaway
  • ''The Raising of Lizzie Meek''

    Non-fiction & reference

  • A Long Time Burning: The History of Literary Censorship in England
  • State Trials, Vol. 1: Treason and libel, with Thomas Bayly Howell
  • State Trials, Vol 2: The Public Conscience, with Thomas Bayly Howell
  • Charge! hurrah! hurrah!: A Life of Cardigan of Balaclava
  • *Cardigan: The Hero of Balaclava
  • *
  • Cochrane: Britannia's Sea Wolf
  • *Cochrane: Britannia's Last Sea-King
  • The Marquis de Sade: A New Biography
  • *
  • *fr. Le Marquis de Sade
  • *de. Marquis de Sade: die grosse Biographie
  • Swinburne, the Poet in his World ;
  • *
  • *
  • Robert Browning: A life within life ;
  • *
  • Henry Fielding
  • Dead Giveaway: Murderers Avenged from the Grave
  • Hanged in Error?
  • Lewis Carroll: A Portrait With Background
  • *
  • The Victorian Underworld, with Henry Mayhew
  • An underworld at war : spivs, deserters, racketeers & civilians in the Second World War
  • *The Enemy Within: Hucksters, Racketeers, Deserters, & Civilians During the Second World War
  • Villains' Paradise: A History of Britain's Post-War Underworld: From the spivs to the Krays
  • *
  • Freedom's Frontier: Censorship in Modern Britain
  • ''Naval Battles of Crete''
    As editor
  • Selected Poems by John Dryden
  • The Everyman Book of Victorian Verse: The Pre-Raphaelites to the Nineties
  • The Everyman Book of Victorian Verse: The Post-Romantics
  • *
    As translator
  • The School of Venus by Michel Millot et Jean L'Ange
  • *