Expectations for women in the 1930s and early 1940s
were to marry and raise a family. To be relegated to spinsterhood was to be
pitied and sometimes scorned. With the arrival of WWII, there was a gradual
acceptance of women holding a career, albeit a “proper” career such as
teaching, nursing, and secretarial.
In literature, a few authors at the time pushed the
envelope by creating female sleuths. Nancy Drew and Miss Marple being two of
the most famous. Let me introduce you to one of the less well-known created by
Stuart Palmer, reporter turned novelist turned screenwriter.
As with most amateur sleuths, school teacher Hildegarde
Withers was thrust into the role when she stumbled on a body floating in the
penguin tank at the New York Aquarium where she had taken her class.
In Palmer’s first book to feature Miss Withers, The Penguin Pool Murder, she is
described as one “whom the census enumerator had recently listed as spinster,
born Boston, age thirty-nine, occupation school-teacher.” Elsewhere the
novel states “she collects tropical fish, abhors alcohol and tobacco, and appears
to have an irritable disposition. However, she is a romantic at heart and
will extend herself to help young lovers.” (note the reference to her
spinsterhood!)
When asked how he created Miss Withers, Palmer gave
the following response:
The origins of Miss Withers are nebulous. When I
started Penguin Pool Murder (to be
laid in the New York Aquarium as suggested by Powell Brentano then head of Brentano’s
Publishers) I worked without an outline, and without much plan. But I decided
to ring in a spinster schoolma’am as a minor character, for comedy relief.
Believe it or not, I found her taking over. She had more meat on her bones than
the cardboard characters who were supposed to carry the story. Finally almost
in spite of myself and certainly in spite of Mr. Brentano, I threw the story
into her lap. She was based to some extent on Fern Hackett, an English teacher
in Baraboo High School who made my life miserable for two years. Once I came to
get her permission to transfer to another class and she said okay, only she’d
be lonesome and board without our arguments; that I was the only student in the
class whom she thought enough of to bother with. I think she started me as a
writer. Fern was a horse-faced old girl, preposterously old-fashioned, fine old
New England family run to seed, hipped on Thoreau and Emerson.”
In addition to appearing in fourteen full length
novels, Miss Withers shows up in countless short stories published in “Mystery”
magazine, a periodical sold exclusively at Woolworths stores. In addition,
Palmer successfully partners with author Craig Rice to pair Miss Withers with
Rice’s character John J. Malone. There were several screen adaptations to the
books with actress Edna May Oliver being the definitive Miss Withers.
Consider reading about Miss Withers’ adventures:
- The
Penguin Pool Murder (1931)
- Murder on
Wheels (1932)
- Murder on
the Blackboard (1932)
- The Puzzle
of the Pepper Tree (1933)
- The Puzzle
of the Silver Persian (1934)
- The Puzzle
of the Red Stallion (1935) [also known as "The Puzzle of the Briar
Pipe"]
- The Puzzle
of the Blue Banderilla (1937)
- The Puzzle
of the Happy Hooligan (1941)
- The
Riddles of Hildegarde Withers (1947), an anthology of short stories
- Miss
Withers Regrets (1947)
- Four Lost
Ladies (1949)
- The Green
Ace (1950)
[also known as "At One Fell Swoop"]
- The Monkey
Murder and other Tales (1950), and anthology of short stories
- Nipped in
the Bud (1951)
[also known as "Trap for a Redhead"]
- Cold
Poison (1954)
[also known as "Exit Laughing"]
- The People
Vs. Withers and Malone (1963), written with Craig Rice
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