Talk:R. Austin Freeman

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I've added a section on his Life, and details of the books written as Clifford Ashdown. Note to enthisatic cross-referrers: his collaborator Dr John J. Pitcairn is not this John Pitcairn! Richard Pinch 16:32, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Article name

Is there any reason this article shouldn't be moved to "R. Austin Freeman" (period after the "R") as opposed to "R Austin Freeman"? Newyorkbrad 00:16, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

You're right, the books were published with the period after the R. Kraxler 18:29, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Focus

Freeman's detective stories had very little character development. His protagonist was a mere schema. They focused mostly on the technical details of crime solving. This was a display of the detective's above–average intelligence and knowledge, evidently mirroring Freeman's own.Lestrade (talk) 21:58, 1 October 2009 (UTC)Lestrade

Case of the Missing Period

The English do not place a period after "Mr.", "Mrs.", "Dr.", or first initials of a name.Lestrade (talk) 16:02, 20 May 2011 (UTC)Lestrade

The OED agrees with you for Mr and Mrs, but not for Dr. or initials. More to the point in this context, my 1929 edition of "The Famous Cases of Dr. Thorndyke" by R. Austin Freeman puts the full stop after both Dr. and R.. MidlandLinda (talk) 16:39, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Bibliography

The Great Portrait Mystery (1918) is listed in the Thorndyke novels and story collections section. I've just read this novella, and there isn't so much as a mention of him--or of any of his known (to me) associates.

Sid401k

Political views/The Uttermost Farthing

Presently, the "political views" section contains an (unsourced) summary of Freeman's novel "The Uttermost Farthing," which features a vigilante committing a series of murders of people he identifies as belonging to the "criminal class." It's not clear what bearing this has on Freeman's real-life views- no source is cited arguing that Freeman agreed with the protagonist of the novel, or documenting that he made arguments for the same behavior outside his fiction, in strong contrast to the well-sourced text documenting Freeman's antisemitism and support for eugenics. It's absurd to impute the values and motives of a fictional character to the character's author without any such evidence; eg clearly Patricia Highsmith did not approve of serial killings, despite writing five popular novels about a serial killer. So I'm excising it wholesale. Yspaddadenpenkawr (talk) 00:52, 1 March 2023 (UTC)