Edmund Crispin

The Case of the Gilded Fly is a detective novel by Edmund Crispin first published in 1944. Crispin's debut novel, it contains the first appearance of eccentric amateur sleuth Gervase Fen, who is Professor of English Language and Literature in the University of Oxford. The book abounds in literary allusions ranging …

The Moving Toyshop is a comic crime novel by Edmund Crispin, published in 1946. The novel features the detective and Oxford don, Gervase Fen. It is dedicated to the poet Philip Larkin, Crispin's contemporary at St John's College, Oxford. In chapter 10, reference is made to an undergraduate essay called "The Influence …