Private Inquiry agent Mr. Carlyle is in search of specialist advice for his latest case: someone who can identify a forgery. He is referred to an expert who can help, but is somewhat surprised to discover that the man is blind...

A new, original recording of a classic public domain text, read and performed by Simon Stanhope for Bitesized Audio.

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Ernest Bramah (1868–1942) was born Ernest Bramah Smith, probably in or near Manchester, where he attended grammar school. An intensely private man, very little information is known about his personal life. His early career included a stint as assistant to Jerome K. Jerome; his first success as a writer came as a contributor of humorous sketches somewhat in the manner of Jerome, to newspapers and periodicals, and he later became editor of one of Jerome's magazines. As an author he is best remembered for creating two characters: Kai Lung, a Chinese storyteller who appeared in a number of humorous stories from 1900; and Max Carrados, the blind detective, created in 1913. He also wrote science fiction, and his 1907 novel 'What Might Have Been' (also known as 'The Secret of the League') is a dystopian story which was acknowledged by George Orwell as a major influence on his own 'Nineteen Eighty-four'. Orwell was also a great admirer of the Max Carrados stories, bracketing them with Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Freeman's Dr Thorndyke as "the only detective stories since Poe that are worth re-reading". The character of Carrados appeared in more than 25 short stories and novels between 1913 and 1934, and by the 1920s was more popular than Sherlock Holmes (whose later cases appeared alongside Carrados in The Strand Magazine). His blindness proves no obstacle to his detective skills; indeed his other senses are heightened and he regularly outwits criminals and fellow detectives alike.

'The Coin of Dionysius' was the first Carrados story to be published, and serves as an introduction to the character as well as two others who were to appear in many of the subsequent stories: Carrados's manservant Parkinson (whom Carrados calls his "eyes"), and Mr. Carlyle, a private inquiry agent who was at school with Max and meets him again while investigating a case of theft. Carrados manages to solve Carlyle's case without leaving his room. In later stories Carlyle works alongside Carrados as a detective and sometimes brings new cases to him.

'The Coin of Dionysius' first appeared under the title 'The Master Coiner Unmasked' in The News of the World on 17 August 1913, and was subsequently published as the opening story in the first volume of Carrados stories (entitled simply 'Max Carrados') in 1914.

Recording © Bitesized Audio 2021.

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