Emma Orczy Baroness Orczy

The Man in the Corner (1909) by Emma Orczy Baroness Orczy

The Old Man in the Corner is an unnamed armchair detective who appears in a series of short stories written by Baroness Orczy. He examines and solves crimes while sitting in the corner of a genteel London tea-room in conversation with a female journalist. He was one of the first of this character-type created in the wake of the huge popularity of the Sherlock Holmes stories. The character's moniker is used as the title of the collection of the earliest stories featuring the character. The character first appeared in The Royal Magazine in 1901 in a series of six "Mysteries of London." The following year he returned in seven "Mysteries of Great Cities" set in large provincial centers of the British Isles. The stories are told by an unnamed lady journalist who reports the conversation of the 'man in the corner' who sits at the same table in the A. B. C. teashop. For the book, twelve were rewritten in the third person, with the lady journalist now named Polly Burton. The title, The Old Man in the Corner (U. S. edition: The Man in the Corner) was given to one of the book collections of the earliest stories