Call Mr. Fortune

Bailey, H. C. (Henry Christopher), 1878-1961Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.5

Word count: 302K words
Chapters: 31

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Call Mr. Fortune by H. C. BaileyAuthor: Bailey, H. C. (Henry Christopher), 1878-1961,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Jun 1, 2019

Editor's review

Call Mr. Fortune is one of the Mr. Fortune detective novels by British author H. C. Bailey, a public-domain work of English literature. Bailey is known for creating the amateur detective Reginald Fortune, and this work continues the short-story detective format: the plot moves briskly, with emphasis on laying out clues and reasoning through dialogue, carrying the typical appeal of early twentieth-century British detective fiction. For readers who enjoy classic mystery and want to understand the short detective-story tradition, it is light but flavorful reading, suited to reading in installments on the commute or before bed. As a public-domain e-book, it also offers English learners original material of moderate length. Note that the character setups and language habits bear the marks of their era; readers should enjoy its narrative pace as genre fiction rather than demand the realistic detail of modern crime novels.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Mystery readers who enjoy classic British short detective fiction
Enthusiasts who want to understand the early twentieth-century detective-story tradition
English learners who need original English material of moderate length
Commuting and bedtime readers who prefer light reading in installments

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking the realistic style of modern hard-boiled crime fiction
Beginners who find early English expression habits difficult
Mystery fans expecting long, complex plots with multiple twists

Reading tips

Read the stories in order and, after each, review how the key clues were pieced together by Fortune.
Read one case per commute to keep up the suspense; there is no need to finish it all at once.
English learners can read the original first and then retell the plot, building up detective-fiction expressions.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Can I read this directly without having read other books in the Fortune series?

Yes. The Fortune series consists mostly of independent short detective stories, each relatively complete in itself and not dependent on earlier setup. Reading this book directly will not cause comprehension problems; if you like the character's style, you can then go back and read other works in the series—the reading order is fairly flexible.

How difficult is the English, and is it suitable for learning English?

Overall it is at a moderately high level of original-text difficulty. The narrative is mainly dialogue and statement of clues, with not overly complex sentence structures, but it carries early twentieth-century expression habits and some period vocabulary. Readers with some English foundation can read it smoothly with a dictionary and use it as extensive reading material; those with a weaker foundation are advised to first read a simplified version or Chinese translation to become familiar with the plot.

What are the characteristics of this detective novel's style of reasoning?

This book follows the typical path of Bailey's short detective stories: the case unfolds within a limited space, clues are gradually presented through dialogue and scene details, and Fortune drives the reasoning through observation and questioning. It emphasizes plot pace and character interaction more than long, complex trick design, and suits readers who like brisk classic mystery.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Bailey, H. C. (Henry Christopher), 1878-1961 Author

Henry Christopher Bailey (H. C. Bailey, 1878–1961) was a British writer known chiefly for detective and crime fiction. Public information about his life and education is limited, and what can be confirmed concerns mainly his works. Two of his books are held in this collection: Call Mr. Fortune and The Highwayman. The former belongs to the Mr. Fortune series, centering on an amateur detective who relies on medical reasoning, with cases often advanced through pathology, poisons, and clinical observation, showing a method that blends scientific knowledge with puzzle-solving. The latter turns to historical adventure, set against highwaymen and old England, with a brisk pace and intricate plotting. Bailey's style generally emphasizes logical exposition and dialogue, combining the readability of popular fiction with the pleasures of fair-play detection. His works circulated among detective-fiction readers in Britain and America in the first half of the twentieth century and had some influence on the medical-detective strand.