Career
Duff served as an officer in the British Merchant Navy in World War I and then in the intelligence division of the Foreign Office and Diplomatic Service. After he retired, Duff taught linguistics and languages in London and Singapore, while writing travel guides, histories, satires, and a series of text books for the active self-learner. He was fluent in seven languages.
His many translations included works by Francisco de Quevedo, Émile Zola, B. Traven, Maxim Gorky, and Arnold Zweig.
Duff"s best known book is A Handbook of Hanging. This also covers electrocution, decapitations, gassings, innocent men executed and botched executions.
lieutenant has been reissued intermittently in the United Kingdom, est g. in 1948, 1953, 1954, 1974, et cetera, and in the United States in 1999, with an introduction by Christopher Hitchens.
