Anthony Abbot

• Born: January 22, 1893
• Birthplace: Baltimore, Maryland
• Died: May 24, 1952
• Place of death: New York, New York

Types of Plot: Master sleuth; police procedural

Principal Series: Thatcher Colt, 1930-1943

Contribution

Anthony Abbot’s contribution to the mystery and detective genre is found in his eight novels chronicling the feats of Thatcher Colt, the reserved but unswerving commissioner of the New York City Police Department. Abbot, as he himself noted, was “one of the first apologists for the police in detective fiction”; as such, he anticipated the development of the police procedural. At a time when most fictional police officers were portrayed as incompetent, dishonest, or, at best, solid but unimaginative, Abbot created a police officer-hero of formidable intelligence. For the most part, however, Abbot was a derivative writer. Popular in their day, the Thatcher Colt novels are now chiefly of historical interest. They are a virtual compendium of the motifs that dominated the American mystery novel in the 1920’s and 1930’s.

Biography

Anthony Abbot was a pen name of Charles Fulton Oursler, who published many books, both fictional and nonfictional, under the name Fulton Oursler. He was born on January 22, 1893, in Baltimore. Abbot’s two sisters died in early childhood. His father worked seven days a week, having supervisory responsibility on a streetcar line; when Abbot was in his teens, however, his father was fired from two jobs, so that the family’s economic position became unstable. As a small child, Abbot was taken by his mother to first-class stage plays in Baltimore; these outings were made possible by the theaters’ donation of tickets to Abbot’s father, whose streetcar schedules accommodated their patrons. During his youth, Abbot read widely and learned to perform magic tricks. His family considered college unaffordable, so he quit school at fifteen and found work as office boy in a law office; he also began to give magic shows at night. While still in his teens, Abbot became a reporter for the Baltimore American, thus taking the first step toward fulfilling the vow he had made three years before, near the grave of Edgar Allan Poe, that he would be a writer.

In 1910, Abbot married Rose Keller Karger; eventually, a son and a daughter were born to them. As a journalist, Abbot met local and national politicians and celebrities such as Sarah Bernhardt. He had been told, however, that the only place to pursue his career was New York City, so in 1918 he obtained work there with Music Trades, a weekly. This was also the year he sold his first short story, “The Sign of the Seven Shots.”

A turning point in Abbot’s life was the inception of his work for Bernarr Macfadden, creator and publisher of Physical Culture, True Story, True Detective, and other magazines. Abbot was soon put in charge of Macfadden’s editorial enterprises. (Later, he served as an editor for Reader’s Digest.) During this time, Abbot wrote fiction, went to Hollywood to do scriptwriting, and met many of the famous people who circulated through New York. In 1924, he had met and fallen in love with writer Grace Perkins, which led him to be one of the first Americans to resort to a Mexican divorce as well as a Mexican marriage. When Rose finally granted the divorce, stipulating an alimony settlement, Abbot and Perkins were able to be married in the United States. Abbot had a daughter and a son from this marriage.

Abbot’s first novel written using his pseudonym was About the Murder of Geraldine Foster (1930; also known as The Murder of Geraldine Foster) , featuring Thatcher Colt. Encouraged by its success—the novel appeared on the best-seller list, a rarity for a mystery at the time—he produced a series of Colt novels in rapid succession while continuing to publish widely as Fulton Oursler. His best-known work, written as Oursler, was the enormously successful inspirational book The Greatest Story Ever Told: A Tale of the Greatest Life Ever Lived (1949), based on his radio series of the same title. (Though skeptical of spiritualism and actively involved in unmasking spiritualist frauds, Abbot had a lifelong interest in religion and in unexplained psychic phenomena; ultimately, he converted to Roman Catholicism.) He died of a heart attack on May 24, 1952.

Analysis

In discussions of popular fiction, critics often use the term “formulaic.” Rarely, however, could that term be so literally applied to a body of fiction as it could to the mystery novel of the 1920’s and 1930’s. During this period, countless writers, attracted by the growing popularity of the genre, approached the task of mystery writing rather as if they were baking a cake: Simply follow the recipe and success will be guaranteed.

Thatcher Colt Series

It was in this fashion that Anthony Abbot’s Thatcher Colt series was conceived. As a hero, Thatcher Colt has much in common with Sherlock Holmes and other prototypical fictional detectives. Colt’s lean, aristocratic features and unflappable manner set him apart from the ordinary run of men. Like Holmes, he is an expert in the science of criminology, while his passion for scientific gadgetry places him in the tradition of a popular American detective of the era, Craig Kennedy. Like Holmes, he frequently keeps his deductions to himself, leaving his subordinates (and the reader) to wait for his explanation of what he has seen that they missed. Colt’s Watson, the recorder of his exploits, is his secretary, Anthony “Tony” Abbot. Thus, “Anthony Abbot” is at once the narrator of the Thatcher Colt books and their (ostensible) author—just as “ Ellery Queen” (who debuted in 1929, a year before Colt) is at once narrator, protagonist, and author of the Ellery Queen books. The same device had long been used in the Nick Carter series.

Why bother with this transparent stratagem? In Abbot’s case, the answer lies in the didactic intent of the Thatcher Colt series—a peculiarly American earnestness. For all of his resemblance to Holmes, Colt is not an amateur sleuth: He is a police officer. While providing the entertainment that was the primary goal of the series, Abbot wanted to send his readers a message regarding the importance of respect for law and order and for professional guardians of the peace. Instead of portraying the police as bumbling oafs or corrupt timeservers, as many mystery writers of the period did, Abbot depicted them (especially as exemplified by Colt) as dedicated and efficient public servants, masters of the new science of crime fighting. The device of Abbot as author/narrator was intended to give the books a pseudodocumentary flavor, reinforcing the authority of their message.

Indeed, Abbot prided himself on the authenticity of the series. In his autobiography, Behold This Dreamer! (written as Oursler; 1924), Abbot emphasized this point:

To get my facts right, I dawdled around the old Headquarters Building in Center Street and got my facts straight from the source; and for a fee, the secretary of the police commissioner read the scripts and checked every detail. The books were meticulously accurate.

A reader in the 1980’s, faced with the patently melodramatic quality of the Thatcher Colt books, might well receive Abbot’s claim with incredulity. These books, meticulously accurate? Certainly it is a long distance from the romanticized adventures of Thatcher Colt (who, despite his professional status, is very much the master sleuth) to the gritty realism of the modern police procedural (where teamwork takes precedence over individual heroics). Nevertheless, with his attention to the actual details of police work, Abbot was preparing the way for that popular subgenre.

Principal Series Characters

• Thatcher Colt is a New York City police commissioner (in one book, however, he has retired into private crime-prevention work). Tall, dapper, and poised, Colt is a genius at orchestration of police resources and technology and at the exposure of fraud. He is married to the beautiful Florence Dunbar.
• Anthony “Tony” Abbot , a former newspaperman, is secretary to Thatcher Colt during and after his term as commissioner. As the man who most frequently shares Colt’s confidences, he takes notes on Colt’s cases and narrates the memoirs to promote public belief in the police. He is married to the lively Betty.
• Merle K. Dougherty , New York’s district attorney, is often at odds with Colt yet must grudgingly acknowledge his indispensable contributions to the work of the police department.

Bibliography

Breen, Jon L. “About the Murders of Anthony Abbot.” The Armchair Detective 3 (October, 1969): 1-5. Discussion of Abbot’s work by a fellow mystery writer and critic who later won the 2000 Agatha Award for best criticism of mystery and detective fiction.

Haycraft, Howard. Murder for Pleasure: The Life and Times of the Detective Story. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1984. History of detective fiction that includes a lengthy “who’s who in detection” appendix.

Herbert, Rosemary, ed. The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Encyclopedia-style reference work on detective fiction includes several references to Abbot in relevant entries. Bibliographic references and index.

Scaggs, John. Crime Fiction. New York: Routledge, 2005. Contains a chapter on police procedurals that helps place Abbot among his fellow writers.

Steinbrunner, Chris, and Otto Penzler, eds. Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976. Still the classic source on mystery and detective fiction. A good work for contextualizing Abbot’s work thematically, but it lacks bibliographic resources.