Earl Derr Biggars – A Tribute

In April 1920, suffering from overwork, the author, playwright and former journalist Earl Derr Biggars obeyed his doctor’s orders and arrived in Waikiki, Hawaii for an extended holiday. When checking in to the beachfront cottage, he asked for the key, only to be told, “What key?” He had just discovered that in 1920s Waikiki no […]

Robert van Gulik and the Judge Dee Mysteries

In 1949, while Political Advisor to his country’s Military Mission in Japan, the Dutch diplomat and scholar Robert van Gulik independently published a translation of an 18th Century Chinese detective novel by an anonymous author entitled ‘Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee’ (Di Gong’an). Unable to conduct his usual scholarly researches due to the pressures of […]