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Portrait image of Julian Symons Photo: Quim Llenas/Cover/Getty Images (2006)

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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...

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Literary figures

Paul Beck

Gender: Male

This English private detective – well known in his day – is a well-built middle-aged man with blue eyes, sideburns and a friendly demeanour: he could be mistaken for a retired milkman, explains author M. McDonnell Bodkin. Paul Beck is a respected detective, and in 1909 he marries his professional colleague, Dora Myrl. Already two years later, their now adult son Paul Beck Jr. solves his first cas...

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