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Portrait image of John P. Marquand Photo: (1952) ANL/REX / TT

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Marquand, John P.

The American author John Phillips Marquand was born in Wilmington, Delaware. His parents were wealthy, but they lost their fortune in the financial panic of 1907 and were forced to move to Panama – Marquand’s father was a canal engineer – and Marquand was left in the care of his eccentric aunts. He then attended Harvard on a grant, which made him a socially inferior student at the prestigious univ...

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Literary figures

Francis Hancock

Gender: Male

His father was an Englishman, his mother from India. Francis Hancock himself is a funeral director in London during the Second World War, when the Germans bombed the city. His experiences during the First World War, when he was a soldier, have given him mental problems. He is very withdrawn, which doesn’t, however, prevent him from being a clever – albeit reluctant – amateur detective in a suite o...

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