Arthur C. Gask - Crime Writer

Mr. Arthur C. Gask SLSA: [B 58382] 1925 

Arthur C. Gask was born in St Marylebone, England in 1869. He was educated in London and became a dentist.^[1]
 Gask married Florence Mary Tippett and together had four children. Gask divorced Florence in 1909, and two months later married his children’s nursemaid, Marion Maltby.^[2]

Gask, Marion, their two sons, and a daughter from his previous marriage emigrated to Australia in 1920. Gask set up his dentistry at 199 North Terrace and is credited as being the first in South Australia to use gas when carrying out teeth extractions.

 Gask became famous as crime writer while living in Adelaide. In between patients, he would write crime fiction. In 1921 he published his first book, The Secret of the Sandhills, which sold out in three weeks. He went on to write 30 novels featuring his detective Gilbert Larose, plus many other novels and short stories. Such was his reputation that H.G. Wells held him in high esteem, saying of his book The Vengeance of Larose; “best piece of story-telling…It kept me up till half-past one.”^[3]

Gask retired in 1933 and moved to the country. He named a homestead he built near Kooringa, ‘Gilrose’.^[4] He later, moved back to city life, settling at Walkerville.

Arthur Gask died on 25 June 1851 in a private hospital in North Adelaide. His remains were 
cremated.

Books from Arthur C. Gask (from Wikipedia)

Gilbert Larose novels

· Cloud the Smiter, 1926

· The Dark Highway, 1928

· The Lonely House, 1929

· The Shadow of Larose, 1930

· The House on the Island, 1931

· Gentlemen of Crime, 1932

· The Hidden Door, 1934

· The Judgment of Larose, 1934

· The Poisoned Goblet, 1935

· The Hangman's Knot, 1936

· The Master Spy, 1937

· The Night of the Storm, 1937

· The Grave-Digger of Monks Arden, 1938

· The Fall of a Dictator, 1939

· The Vengeance of Larose, 1939

· The House on the Fens, 1940

· The Tragedy of the Silver Moon, 1940

· The Beachy Head Murder, 1941

· His Prey Was Man, 1942

· The Mystery of Fell Castle, 1944

· The Man of Death, 1946

· The Dark Mill Stream, 1947

· The Unfolding Years, 1947

· The House with the High Wall, 1948

· The Storm Breaks, 1949

· The Silent Dead, 1950

· The Vaults of Blackarden Castle, 1950

· Marauders by Night, 1951

· Night and Fog, 1951

· Crime Upon Crime, 1952 (Posthumous)

Other Novels

· The Secret of the Sandhills, 1921

· The Red Paste Murders (US Title: Murder in the Night), 1923

· The Secret of the Garden, 1924

· The Jest of Life, 1936

Short Stories

· The Martyr on the Land, (1935)

· The Passion Years, (1936)

· The Destroyer, 1939

· The Will, (1944)

· Buggy's Babies, (1944)

· Ghosts, (1944)

· Seedtime and Harvest, (1944)

· The Amazing Adventure of Marmaduke, (1944)

· The Lottery Ticket, (1944)

· The Mark of Honor, (1944)

· The Hatton Garden Crime, (1945)

· The Way of Chance, (1945)

· Black Market, (1945)

· The Bishop's Dilemma, (1948)

For more information about Gask’s works please visit AusLit.
https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A27498?mainTabTemplate=agentWorksBy

Researched and written by Allen Tiller © 2020


[1] 'Mystery Writer's Death', The Advertiser, (26 June 1951), p. 2.

[2] Michael J. Tolley, 'Gask, Arthur Cecil (1869–1951)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, ANU, (1996), http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/gask-arthur-cecil-10283/text18191.

[3] 'Mystery Writer's Death', The Advertiser, (26 June 1951), p. 2.

[4] Arthur Cecil Gask (1869 - 1951), WikiTree, (25 July 2020), https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Gask-6

Subterranean Adelaide Part Two - Roseneath

Subterranean Adelaide Part Two

Roseneath

Completed in 1849 in the northern Adelaide suburb of Walkerville sits the stunning Georgian Villa known as “Roseneath'.

The house was built for James Wyld Macdonald who was an official at the Burra Mines.

The villa, built from locally kilned bricks was originally surrounded by olive groves and rows of grape vines that flanked the main driveway to the front gates on Stephens Terrace.

At the rear of the building sits a small limestone cottage, stables and coach house that was completed sometime around 1845.

This building has a service tunnel underneath it that extends to the servant quarters at the rear of the main building. Other branches of the tunnel go into storage rooms and wine cellars. 

 There is an old legend that there was once another tunnel from Roseneath that led to the River Torrens. It is speculated that this tunnel was to aide bringing water to the house, to help cool the house, and to provide an escape route if there was an attack by local indigenous people, or if Russians invaded Adelaide, a constant fear at the time.

The tunnels are all bricked lined their entire length and were constructed under the guidance of original owner James McDonald.

Researched and written by Allen Tiller © 2015

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