BURIED FOR PLEASURE:
GERVASE FEN — THE EARLY YEARS (1898 - 1938)

Mathematics reveal the first major fact in the Fen story: he emerged upon an unsuspecting world in 1898. We can say this with some certainty as Mr Crispin states, in The Case of the Gilded Fly, that Fen had been 42 years on the planet. This case took place between 4th and 11th of October, 1940.

Of Fen's first 37 years, little is known. It seems likely he grew up in a comfortable home, and read a lot of Lewis Carroll. 

He did, as a mere teenager, play a part in the First World War but that part is not revealed. It is unlikely to have been significant — Fen would have been twenty when war ended — but it is almost impossible to think of him as mere cannon fodder in a trench. Something more cerebral must surely have been his lot.

This biographer contends that Fen married in 1933, and offers some tentative support for that contention later.

Either late in 1937, or early in 1938, at a comparatively young age, Fen became Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford. The evidence for this is fairly clear. In Buried For Pleasure (September 1947), Fen reflects that he is almost ten years professoring in Oxford, and as this case occurred in, and as he is already a professor by Autumn 1938 (Moving Toyshop) his elevation must have taken place sometime in between.

While his love of learning was clearly as great as that of Crispin, the man he chose to, as he put it himself, 'Write up his adventures,' literature alone was not enough to occupy him. Indeed, Fen was a man of many transient passions: Lepidoptery (Holy Disorders), Politics (Buried For Pleasure), the French Horn (Frequent Hearses), and collecting religious sects (Long Divorce). He was clearly a man who needed an absorbing and permanent other interest, and in crime detection he found it.

It was in October 1935 that he encountered his first case, related by Crispin as Lacrimae Rerum, a simple tale of musical murder.

Fen's activities for the following few years are shrouded in mystery, yet by the time of The Moving Toyshop, he had already acquired something of a reputation as a criminologist. This is attested to by Sally Carstairs, who, says Crispin, ‘was vaguely surprised that a man whose exploits as a detective were so well known…’ One mystery here is that Crispin had not, at this stage, previously published any of Fen’s exploits, begging the question: how did they become known? On the other hand, it can be argued that some support for the contention is indicated by the fact that Fen was already friendly with Sir Richard Freeman, Chief Constable of Oxford. This friendship was formed from their mutual curiosity about each other’s profession, and surely Fen was never one for mere idle observation. At least the date of this adventure is quite clear: Mr Crispin stated that the bizarre events took place in the Autumn of 1938.

This was the most famous of Fen’s cases, remembered by Inspector Widger almost 40 years later in Glimpses of the Moon. Quite apart from the fantastic events surrounding the death of Miss Tardy, it seemed for a while that Fen’s friend Cadogan had solved the mystery of the missing link but it turned out to be his publisher.

The date of Gervase Fen’s marriage to Dolly is, sadly, totally unknown. All we can do is surmise. Dolly, only appeared in one of Crispin's publications, The Case of the Gilded Fly. In this 1940 case, she displays the sort of passive acceptance of her husband's eccentricities that could only have come from some years of marriage. Even his absent-minded proposal that she should shoot herself does not upset her greatly, so used to him has she become. The Fen's have a small son, John, who is at least big enough to swing the cat. This suggests he might be about two at this stage, unless it was a kitten, of course. Working backwards, it would seem the latest Fen and Dolly could have been wed was 1937. Bearing in mind, however, that in The Moving Toyshop, (Autumn, 1938) Fen makes no mention of his wife, and that in Holy Disorders (1940), Crispin tells us Fen was comfortably married, it seems reasonable to conclude she was no longer a novelty for him. Then too, would a newly-married man have needed to turn to crime for diversion? With any ordinary man, it would seem safe to say no, but in Fen's case, it is harder to be quite so definitive. Nevertheless, surely even he would have been enthralled enough for at least a year or so before needing new stimulus. As he first turned to crime in 1935, I conclude, therefore, he was married in the early 30's, and suggest, tentatively, in 1933. For some further considerations, see ‘A Comfortable Marriage’ below.