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Downton Abbey and Winnie-the-Pooh

1/18/2015

3 Comments

 
Picture
Original cover of A.A. Milne's mystery
Children's author A.A. Milne, creator of Winnie-the-Pooh,  also wrote a detective novel. An odd connection exists between Milne's The Red House Mystery and Downton Abbey. The bones of the classic British mystery are on display in Milne's book:

* the English country house setting
* a crime investigated by an amateur
* a sidekick
* a locked-room puzzle
* a whodunit with clues that play fair with the reader

The book opens "below stairs" . . .
The housekeeper and a parlor maid discuss the arrival of the host’s long-lost brother, the disruptive stranger amid the guests already at the house. The murder is investigated by a gentleman sleuth named Tony Gillingham. Aha. Tony Gillingham is also the name of Mary’s suitor in Downton Abbey and the man whose rapist-valet died in an “accident.” Is the choice of the man's name a coincidence? I wonder. 

Julian Fellowes, Downton Abbey’s creator and writer, is certainly familiar with British mysteries from the same era as Milne's. Fellowes wrote the country house mystery Gosford Park and a screenplay for Agatha Christie’s The Crooked House. Fellowes says “murder in a genteel setting” never goes stale. 
​

Downton Abbey was originally conceived as a spin-off of Gosford Park. Though the series went in another direction, the remnants of that initial idea remain in the suspicious deaths that affect upstairs and downstairs at Downton. 
3 Comments
Arnie Perlstein link
2/6/2015 04:52:39 pm

See my blog post from a few days ago, I am working on a followup that is even more probative that Fellowes meant to allude to Milne:

http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2015/02/thomas-barrow-as-iago-of-downton-abbey.html

Reply
Maya Corrigan
2/7/2015 05:08:43 am

Thank you for your comment. I enjoyed your blog with all the connections you found between Downton Abbey and A.A. Milne's mystery.

Reply
Arnie Perlstein link
2/20/2015 04:55:15 am

Thanks! I didn't realize you had responded.... Fellowes is indeed a very sly and clever fellow!

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    Maya Corrigan

    This blog, like the books and stories I write, combines mysteries, food, trivia, and a bit of humor to leaven the grim subject of crime. Sometimes random subjects intrude here .

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