Background
He was born on April 19, 1871 at Romines Mills, near Clarksburg, West Virginia, United States, the son of Ira Carper Post and Florence May (Davisson) Post. He was reared on his father's farm.
(The Casebook of MONSIEUR JONQUELLE Prefect of Police of P...)
The Casebook of MONSIEUR JONQUELLE Prefect of Police of Paris TWELVE DETECTIVE STORIES by MELVILLE DAVISSON POST (author of Uncle Abner & The Nameless Thing) First ebook edition published Gideonfell Book Lts. January 2010 Created from original 1923 First Edition, now in public domain PARIS, Nice, Geneva, the ALPS, Monte Carlo, darkest Africa... Monsieur Jonquelle travels the globe and find MYSTERY, romance, the BIZARRE, and the shocking: extortion, arson, espionage, counterfeiting, crimes of passion, confidence scams, art forgery, fraud, romance, and devilishly clever detection. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. The Great Cipher CHAPTER II. Found in the Fog CHAPTER III. The Alien Corn CHAPTER IV. The Ruined Eye CHAPTER V. The Haunted Door CHAPTER VI. Blucher's March CHAPTER VII. The Woman on the Terrace CHAPTER VIII. The Triangular Hypothesis CHAPTER IX. The Problem of the Five Marks CHAPTER X. The Man with Steel Fingers CHAPTER XI. The Mottled Butterfly CHAPTER XII. The Girl with the Ruby
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He was born on April 19, 1871 at Romines Mills, near Clarksburg, West Virginia, United States, the son of Ira Carper Post and Florence May (Davisson) Post. He was reared on his father's farm.
He was educated first in rural schools and then at an academy at Buckhannon, West Virginia. He received the degree of A. B. and LL. B. at West Virginia University in 1891 and 1892.
After studies he formed a law partnership with John A. Howard at Wheeling, West Virginia, and practised six years in the criminal courts. He turned then to corporate law and formed a partnership with John T. McGraw of Grafton, West Virginia, one of the leading Democrats of the state.
Post very early took an active part in politics. In 1892 he was chosen presidential elector-at-large by the Democratic party and was made secretary of the electoral college, the youngest member ever to sit in that body. In 1898 he was made chairman of the Democratic Congressional Committee in West Virginia. As a member of the firm of McGraw & Post, one of the strongest in the state, he practised in the state supreme court, the circuit court of appeals, and the federal courts. After five years, however, the firm was dissolved and he thereafter devoted most of his time to literature.
While practising law in Wheeling in 1896, he published his first volume of detective stories, The Strange Schemes of Randolph Mason, then his sequel, The Man of Last Resort (1897). His third book, Dwellers in the Hills (1901), his first long story, dealt with cattle buyers in West Virginia. In 1918 appeared another treatment of the detective story in Uncle Abner; Master of Mysteries, in which a rural Sherlock Holmes solves mysteries in the mountains of western Virginia.
His travels in Europe were reflected in The Mystery at the Blue Villa (1919), with various settings in London, Paris, Ostend, the Riviera, and Cairo. Except for The Mountain School Teacher (1922), an allegory of the life of Christ translated into a modern background, he wrote in the 1920's only detective and mystery stories. The Silent Witness (1930) was published posthumously. Most of his stories before publication in book form appeared in magazines.
During the last years of his life he lived at "The Hill of the Painted Men, " Lost Creek, Harrison County, West Virginia. In 1914 and 1915 he served on the Advisory Committee of the National Economic League to consider questions of efficiency in the administration of justice.
He died at Clarksburg, West Virginia, after an illness of two weeks.
(The Casebook of MONSIEUR JONQUELLE Prefect of Police of P...)
(The Man of Last Resort)
In 1924 he headed a group of writers supporting John W. Davis for president.
Post's own theory was that the short story must have popular appeal, that if it also ennobles, well and good, but that at any cost it must be entertaining. Plot to him was more important than character. The development of the mystery and its solution had to go side by side, and the climax must occur at the end of the story instead of at the middle, as in Poe's detective stories.
Quotes from others about the person
As to his place in American literature criticism ranges from the statement of Blanche C. Williams, who gives him "a rank second" and judges that "before the age of fifty he had established himself in narrative one of the immortals, " to that of Edward J. H. O'Brien who denies, that he has any "relation to literature. " O'Brien says, "in his ability to construct a plot Post surpassed many of the great masters. " Fred Pattee, in his Development of the American Short Story (1923), states, "Post is typical of the O. Henry school of writers, - able to catch the attention of the public, but whose stories lack repose and are quickly forgotten. "
He married Ann Bloomfield Gamble of Roanoke, Virginia, on June 29, 1903. Their only child (a son, Ira) died in infancy.