Sarah Caudwell
Sarah Caudwell was a British author and barrister known for her unique contributions to the mystery genre. Born to a family that emphasized women's independence and intellect, she pursued a rigorous education in classics and law, earning degrees from Aberdeen University and St. Anne's College, Oxford. Caudwell became a notable figure at Oxford for her activism against the ban on women speaking at the Oxford Union, eventually becoming one of the first women to address the chamber.
She practiced law in London and later worked at Lloyds Bank, but her passion for detective fiction led her to write a series of mystery novels featuring Professor Hilary Tamar, a barrister whose gender remains undisclosed throughout the works. Her writing is characterized by sharp wit, intricate plots, and a deep understanding of legal matters, making her books both entertaining and intellectually engaging. Caudwell's works, including "Thus Was Adonis Murdered" and "The Sirens Sang of Murder," received critical acclaim, with her second novel winning the Anthony Award for Best Mystery in 1990. Despite only publishing four novels during her lifetime, her legacy continues to influence the mystery genre.
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Sarah Caudwell
Writer
- Born: May 27, 1939
- Birthplace: Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England
- Died: January 28, 2000
- Place of death: London, England
Biography
Patrick Claud Cockburn was a renowned journalist often attacked for communist sympathies. His second wife was actress and journalist Jean Ross, the model for Christopher Isherwood’s Sally Bowles in Goodbye to Berlin (the basis for the musical Caberet). Their union lasted barely long enough to produce a daughter, Sarah; Claud Cockburn left six weeks after she was born. The girl’s mother, grandmother, and two aunts raised her, who noted “fathers are not good for girls.” Jean Ross supported her daughter by acting and journalism, and told Sarah, “They don’t think feminism’s about sex, do they? It’s about economics.”
After attending Aberdeen (England) High School for Girls, Caudwell studied classics at Aberdeen University and earned two law degrees at St. Anne’s College, Oxford. At Oxford she fought the ban that kept women out of the Oxford Union, at one point appearing dressed as a man. When the ban was overturned, she was one of the first women to speak in the famed Oxford Union debating chamber. After graduation, she taught law at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, and in 1965, began her practice as a barrister in business, trusts, and probate law at Lincoln’s Inn, London. To supplement her income, she tutored students at Oxford. In the mid-1970’s, she left to work for the trust division of Lloyds Bank.
A passionate fan of whodunnits, by this time she had “read my way through every good one” and been left with only “terrible, tedious books to read,” so she decided to write her own. She created Professor Hilary Tamar, a barrister and medieval scholar whose gender is cleverly never disclosed. In fact, she refused to sell television rights in order to keep the secret. The books also feature a cast of bright, witty younger barristers who practice at Lincoln’s Inn.
With humor that is by turns dry, scintillating, wry, and slapstick—but never mean—Caudwell created ingenious mysteries full of red herrings and classical erudition. Much of her humor comes from the pairing of opposites, both between and within characters. The voluptuous and often disheveled Julia Larwood, for example, has a fine mind for the intricacies of finance and tax law but a woeful inability to deal with everyday life. Caudwell’s careful attention to detail and intricate knowledge of business law won admirers, but her cleverness and comic sensibility brought unexpected life to what in other hands would be a dry subject.
Caudwell wrote only four mysteries, the last one published posthumously. Her agent noted that other interests kept her busy; these included travel and writing deeply perceptive essays on the places she went—with her customary humor. She began an article on a Provençal religious festival, “When monsters stop eating people there is cause for festivity.”
Thus Was Adonis Murdered was ranked one of the top hundred crime novels of the twentieth century by The Times of London. The Sirens Sang of Murder won the Anthony award for best mystery in 1990. The New York Times listed The Sibyl in Her Grave as one of its notable books for 2000.