Accident by Design

INTRODUCTIONEdith Caroline Rivett (1894–1958) was a British crime writer, who wrote under the pseudonyms E. C. R. Lorac, Carol Carnac, and Mary Le Bourne during the golden age of detective fiction. She was born in Hendon, Middlesex (now part of London), daughter of Harry Rivett and Beatrice Rivett, née Foot. She had two sisters. In 1898, the family emigrated to Australia for health reasons—the weather was meant to treat her father’s tuberculosis. This was unsuccessful, and in 1900 the family returned to England by sea. Unfortunately, Harry Rivett died on the voyage and was buried at sea. When the family reached London, they were literally penniless but were received into the welcoming, if crowded, household of Beatrice Rivett’s father, Edward Foot, and her mother found employment as an assistant rate collector. Edith attended South Hampstead High School, and the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London. She continued as a craft practitioner throughout her life; her work included embroidery and calligraphy that has been on display at Westminster Abbey. She published her first detective novel in 1931—The Murder on the Burrows, a well-crafted debut which launched her detective, Robert Macdonald, on a career that was to last for more than a quarter of a century. Nine Lorac novels were published by Sampson Low, earning increasingly favorable reviews, before she moved to the more prestigious imprint of Collins Crime Club in 1936, with Crime Counter Crime, set during a General Election. She remained a Crime Club stalwart for the rest of her life. John Curran, historian of the Crime Club, argues that she was especially well served by the designers of the cover artwork for her books, and this is no doubt one of the factors that has made her work especially collectible. First editions in the attractive dust jackets of the period can now change hands—on the rare occasions when they come on to the market—for thousands of pounds. She was equally at home with urban and rural settings. Her early books include Murder in St John’s Wood and Murder in Chelsea, while two other books are set in London, Bats in the Belfry and the war-time mystery Murder by Matchlight. Like Rosanne Manaton, she was artistic and had an interest in skiing. The winter sport plays a central part in her Carol Carnac novel Crossed Skis, also published by the British Library. In November 1940, having been evacuated to Devon due to the Nazis bombing London, she wrote to a friend about the horrors of living through a war. Referring to the death of one of her oldest friends, killed while fire-fighting, she said: “Most of my other friends have been bombed or burnt out of their homes. What a sickening insanity it all is.” Remaining unmarried, she lived her last years with her elder sister, Gladys Rivett (1891–1966), in Lonsdale, Lancashire. She became a popular figure in the village while continuing to work productively as a detective novelist. To this day, she is remembered in the local community as spirited and strong-willed, a woman with a strong social conscience. Edith Rivett died at the Caton Green Nursing Home, Caton-with-Littledale, near Lancaster. According to the probate records for her will, she left an estate valued at £10,602, 16 shillings [about £250,000 in 2020]. Rivett is buried in the churchyard at St Saviour’s Church, Aughton. —Karl Wurf Rockville, Maryland