John Dickson Carr, who also wrote under the name Carter Dickson, was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in 1906 and died in Greenville, South Carolina, in 1977 and in between those dates he spent most of his active writing career living in Great Britain, where his novels were so 'British' that people there and in the US considered him an Englishman. His father was a Congressman, his wife a native of Bristol, but for all that you MUST read Douglas G. Greene's biography The Man Who Explained Miracles, if the background of this greatest of Golden Age detective story writers matters to you in addition to his great mysteries. (This book is no longer in print, but can probably be obtained used at ABEbooks.)

There was a John Dickson Carr club -- I guess similar to the Baker Street Irregulars (for Sherlock Holmes aficionados) but obviously not so wide-spread. This was brought to the attention of the newsgroup Fans of John Dickson Carr, where a discussion came up about that old club based in Oxford, perhaps under the aegis of Edmund Crispin. It seems to be defunct so one of the members of this group thought it would be a good idea to resuscitate it. Since it would involve Internet correspondents who live all over the world, that would not be practical in the sense of having periodical banquets and the like (most people don't live in London or New York); it struck me as a good idea to revive this society over the Internet. There are several web sites and discussion groups that mention John Dickson Carr -- are in some cases even dedicated to him -- but there is no central place for fans of this author to come into a 'society' where most of this Internet traffic can be put together.

Aficionados of John Dickson Carr (and anybody who is into the subject of Golden Age Detective Stories) are encouraged to sign up as members of this web site. Most of the contents are publicly viewable, but membership allows additional privileges, such as being allowed to update the Book Data Base with comments.

I have recently installed a 'SpamKiller' program for my e-mail (200 junk messages a day is too much!). Unfortunately, this puts e-mail from people not in my address book into a holding file where I officially have to 'approve' the sender. Members of this club and others who e-mail about this site can ignore the automatic message Earthlink will send you saying you are spamming -- I assure you I will add you to my address book. Sorry for the inconvenience. -- Grobius

A Note on the Navigation functions:

• Intro is this home page
• Members is the membership area, which allows more functions (sign-in required)
• Links is a place where anybody can add Internet links to the site
• Newsgroups lists discussion groups similar to this
• Bulletins is the public forum for this site (messages, etc.)
• Booksellers lists a few places where you might be able to buy JDC books
• Chat Room is just that (but don't expect much activity -- chat rooms require large membership to be effective)
• Books accesses the database containing details about each JDC book
• E-Mail sends a message to me
• Search to look for individual titles
• Join allows you to become a member (and also can display the list of all the members and their e-mail addresses)

Additional Items: As this site develops, more features will be added. Return to this page to see what's New.

• Detectives -- Data Base entries about Carr's detectives and other characters (5/29/02)
• Book List -- A printable checklist of the author's major publications (8/13/02)
• Cover Scans -- Some scanned images of book covers, and a poll for your favorites (9/2/02)
• Rate the Books -- Submit your rankings (9/6/02)
• Carr Quiz -- Take a test to sample your knowledge (9/29/02)
• Quick List -- A short bibliography for those in a hurry (1/18/03)
• Parodies and Spoilers -- Nobody is perfect or beneath non-malicious ribbing (7/17/03)
  

There is more to this page: please continue for more information (and some apologies).

There is a bit of Javascript that will get rid of the frame (supposing you reach a site from here and don't want the nav-bar anymore), but Microsoft will not allow this when going to another domain -- that domain has to eliminate the frame itself. But if you want to try it anyway, click here (it will at least remove the frame if the main page is within this site; to restore click this). If you want a non-frames version, remove the frame now and use the following links:

Enough chatter! Why not go to the interesting stuff? Search for a title: The Books.

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This is the most likely place to find out-of-print books by JDC

Update! Crippen and Landru are going to publish some never reprinted stage plays by Carr and Val Gielgud next year. This is something to look forward to.