Photo: Quim Llenas/Cover/Getty Images (2006)
Sample of authors
Symons, Julian
Julian Gustave Symons was a British author and critic born in London, where he spent part of his life. His mother was English and his father a Russian Jew, a stern Victorian patriarch who gave his son little or no encouragement. Symons developed such a severe stammer in childhood that he was sent to a succession of state schools for retarded children. He was close to his twelve years older...
Literary figures
Philo Vance
Gender: Male
Conceited and garrulous but with a very good all-round education, he is an amateur detective featured in a dozen orthodox whodunnits by S.S. Van Dine (pseudonym for Willard Huntington Wright). Philo Vance come from a ‘fine’ family, is well educated, very rich, mainly spends his time collecting art etc. and writing scientific articles in various subjects. He is of average height, slim, elegant, wit...