Graeme, Bruce
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
Pseudonym of UK author Graham Montague Jeffries (1900-1982), mostly of crime stories, the best known of these being the Blackshirt sequence, beginning with Blackshirt (coll 1925), the eponymous author-with-a-secret-identity having near but not quite Superhero powers; of the stories featuring him, Blackshirt the Adventurer (1936) is of sf interest, being set (as George Locke has interestingly claimed) in a genuine criminal Dystopia beneath London (see Underground). Less interestingly, Son of Blackshirt (1941) and its sequels – though published during World War Two ndash; take place in a post-victory future, albeit one which lacks other sf elements and whose war was seemingly shorter than ours. When the Bells Rang: A Tale of What Might Have Been (1943) with Anthony Armstrong, is a morale-boosting Alternate History tale of a 1940 Invasion of the UK by the Nazis, and of their subsequent defeat (see Hitler Wins). A few other titles in his extensive oeuvre [see Checklist] are fantasy. "It Will Not Happen", one of the three long tales assembled in A Brief for O'Leary, and Two Other Episodes in His Career (coll 1947), is set in a Near Future Britain whose monarch King John II muses upon an onslaught of socialism. [JC/DR]
Graham Montague Jeffries
born London: 23 May 1900
died London: 14 May 1982
works (selected)
series
Blackshirt
- Blackshirt the Adventurer (London: Hutchinson and Co, 1936) [Blackshirt: hb/]
- Son of Blackshirt (London: Hutchinson, 1941) [Blackshirt: hb/]
individual titles
- Epilogue (London: Hutchinson and Co, 1933) [hb/]
- When the Bells Rang: A Tale of What Might Have Been (London: Harrap, 1943) with Anthony Armstrong [hb/Kay]
- The Coming of Carew (London: Hutchinson and Co, 1945) [hb/]
- A Brief for O'Leary, and Two Other Episodes in His Career (London: Hutchinson and Co, 1947) [coll: hb/uncredited]
links
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