Monday, March 07, 2011

Hunt the author 2

Here's a curiosity from my collection...

R. Gilmour was a semi-prolific author for Mellifont Press whose work appeared in 1934-46. The above shows that Gilmour was a pen-name... but I'd struggling to decipher the author's real name from the squiggle that appears on the title page. The two full stops tell me that the name begins with two initials and the surname might be Monison, which is a genuine surname, possibly Scottish in origin, although there are also Monisons in Ireland, which (despite the address above) is where Mellifont Press were based.

I've yet to find a writer named Monison listed in any standard bibliographies but, bizarrely (and a bit luckily), I have found a name that might fit the signature. Allowing for it being somewhat flowery, could the first two initials be T. R.?

There was a Thomas Rea Monison born in Antrim, Co. Antrim, in Ireland on 2 March 1878, the son of Robert Monison and his wife Annie (nee Rea).

This is a real stretch... I'm still not 100% convinced that the name is Monison, let alone what the initials stand for. Thomas Rea Monison is the only name I could find that fitted after a whole string of guesses and is, itself, a guess. What do you think? Can anyone come up with another name that might fit the signature?

Novels
The Spartan Boxer. Dublin, Mellifont Press, 1934.
A Champion's Bride. Dublin, Mellifont Press, 1934.
Jem Lang's Secret Punch. Dublin, Mellifont Press, 1934.
Champion Paddy O'Kane. Dublin, Mellifont Press, 1935.
Bewitched. Dublin, Mellifont Press, 1935.
Knuckleduster Jim. Dublin, Mellifont Press, 1936.
The Kayo Gypsy. Dublin, Mellifont Press, 1937.
Rough-Neck Rowan. Dublin, Mellifont Press, 1939.
Wanted for Murder. Dublin, Mellifont Press, 1939.
Death in the Ring. Dublin, Mellifont Press, 1940.
Dynamite Dave. Dublin, Mellifont Press, 1940.
Champion in Battle-Dress. Dublin, Mellifont Press, 1942.
Double-Cross Murder. Dublin, Mellifont Press, 1943.
The Kukri Killer. Dublin, Mellifont Press, 1945.
The Missing Rajah. Dublin, Mellifont Press, 1946.

Short Stories
The Champion Breed (Boxing Yarns 1, 1946)
Floating Hearse (Weird Story Magazine 2, 1946)

1 comment:

  1. Howison and Morrison are two possibilities

    ReplyDelete

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