Ronald Knox
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Ronald Arbuthnott Knox (1888-1957) was an English theologian and crime writer.
He was born in Leicestershire, England on February 17, 1888, to an Anglican family and educated at Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford. In 1910, he became a fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, he was appointed chaplain in 1912 but left in 1917 when he was converted to Roman Catholicism. While a Roman Catholic chaplain at the University of Oxford (1926-1939) and as domestic prelate to the Pope 1936, he wrote classic detective stories. He also wrote and broadcast on Christianity and other subjects.
According to his niece, Penelope Fitzgerald, a fine author in her own right, Msgr. Knox was probably the best known Roman Catholic Bishop of his day. He singlehandedly translated the St. Jerome Latin Vulgate Bible into English. His works on religious themes include: Some Loose Stones (1913), Reunion All Round (1914), The Spiritual Aeneid (1918), The Belief of Catholics (1927), Caliban in Grub Street (1930), Heaven and Charing Cross (1935), Let Dons Delight (1939), and Captive Flames (1940).
Msgr. Knox’s Roman Catholicism caused his father to cut him out of his will. This did not make much difference, however, as Knox earned a good income from his detective novels.
An essay in Knox's Essays in Satire (1928), "Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes", was the first of the genre of mock-serious critical writings on Sherlock Holmes and mock-historical studies in which the existence of Holmes, Watson, et al. is assumed. Oddly, the later works commonly go to much greater lengths to present a coherent case than did their model, which was meant only as a satire on certain trends in literary scholarship.
He was one of the four Knox brothers (with E. V. Knox, Dillwyn Knox and Wilfred Knox) written about in a joint biography by Penelope Fitzgerald, his niece.
Autobiography
- A Spiritual Aeneid (1918)
Novels
External link
- Detective Fiction Resource Site Ronald Knox Bibliography
