Parson's Tunnel and The Ocean Sleuth

The Parson from Lea Mount - 4th March 2013

I think Network Rail are missing a trick; a lot of people (me included) would be very happy to pay £10 to don a hard hat and walk through the Brunel tunnels on the currently unused South Devon Main Line between Dawlish and Teignmouth. However, we'll have to make do with a fictional account in the 1915 crime thriller The Ocean Sleuth.

Drake window: Furlong

Drake window, Furlong - click to enlarge

In the previous post about the Exeter glasspainter, novelist and poet Maurice Drake (see Maurice Drake and WO2), I concluded with an unresolved thread about his last work, a window he designed for Mr H Wilson Holman, of Furlong, Topsham, and I wondered if it was still extant.

The Coming Back of Laurence Averil

A gallery of images from Maurice Drake's The Coming Back of Laurence Averil, originally published as The Salving of a Derelict (Maurice Drake, London: T. Werner Laurie, 1910). These are from the New York: Edward J Clode 1915 edition, illustrations by AW Parsons, Internet Archive comingbackoflaur00drakiala). Maurice Drake (1875-1923) was an Exeter-based glass and stained-glass expert with a sideline in maritime crime fiction. See previous post for biography and bibliography: Maurice Drake and WO2.

Maurice Drake and WO2

I just followed up the reference in Adventure through Red Devon to "Maurice Drake's strange novel WO2", since it turns out to have local connections.