Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

Elisabeth Sanxay Holding (1889–1955) was an American novelist and short story writer. She primarily authored fiction in the hardboiled subgenre of detective novels.

Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
Born(1889-06-18)June 18, 1889
Brooklyn
DiedFebruary 7, 1955(1955-02-07) (aged 65)
Bronx
NationalityAmerican
Genrenovels, short stories
SpouseGeorge E. Holding

Life and career

Born June 18, 1889 in Brooklyn, New York, Sanxay attended Miss Whitcombe's and other schools for young ladies before marrying British diplomat George E. Holding in 1913. The couple had two daughters, Skeffington (1917- ) and Antonia (1920-2006), and traveled widely in South America and the Caribbean before living in Bermuda for a number of years, where Mr. Holding was a government official. After Mr. Holding's retirement, the couple lived in the Bronx section of New York City, where Elisabeth Sanxay Holding died on February 7, 1955.[1]

Elisabeth Sanxay Holding wrote romantic novels during the 1920s, but, after the stock market crash in 1929, she turned to the more lucrative genre of the detective novel. From 1929 through 1954, she wrote eighteen detective novels, which sold well and earned her praise for her style and character development. Her series character for these novels was Lieutenant Levy.

Holding also authored many short stories.

Her novel The Blank Wall (1947) was popular enough to inspired the film adaptation The Reckless Moment in 1949. It was adapted again into the 2001 The Deep End starring Tilda Swinton. It was republished by Persephone Books in 2003 and again in 2009. A number of Holding's crime novels have been more recently reprinted by Stark House Press and other publishers and made available to new readers. It appeared in 2015 as part of the Library of America's omnibus Women Crime Writers: Four Suspense Novels of the 1940s.

Critical reputation

Holding was much admired during her day. Raymond Chandler, one of the top writers of detective fiction during its golden age of 1920–1940, said of Holding that she was "the top suspense writer of them all."[2]

Literary critic and editor Anthony Boucher wrote that "[f]or subtlety, realistic conviction, incredible economy, she’s in a class by herself."[3] Boucher also praised Holding's Miss Kelly, about a cat who learns to speak with humans, as "one of those too-rare juvenile fantasies with delightful appeal to the adult connoisseur."[4] It also received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews.

Bibliography
The Unlit Lamp (1922)

Romances
  • Invincible Minnie (1920)
  • Angelica (1921)
  • Rosaleen Among the Artists (1921)
  • The Unlit Lamp (1922)

Detective
  • Miasma (1929)
  • Dark Power (1930)
  • The Death Wish (1934)
  • The Unfinished Crime (1935)
  • The Strange Crime in Bermuda (1937)
  • The Obstinate Murderer (1938) (also published as No Harm Intended
  • The Girl Who Had To Die (1940)
  • Who's Afraid? (1940) (also published' as Trial By Murder)
  • Speak of the Devil (1941)
  • Kill Joy (1942) (also published as Murder is a Kill-Joy)
  • Lady Killer (1942)
  • The Old Battle Ax (1943)
  • Net of Cobwebs (1945)
  • The Innocent Mrs. Duff (1946)
  • The Blank Wall (1947) (reprinted by Persephone Books)
  • Too Many Bottles (1951) (also published as The Party Was the Pay-Off)
  • The Virgin Huntress (1951)
  • Widow's Mite (1953)

Children's
  • Miss Kelly (1947)

References
  1. "Elisabeth Sanxay Holding | Women Crime Writers of the 1940s and 50s". womencrime.loa.org.
  2. "ELIZABETH SANXAY HOLDING". web.archive.org. June 17, 2008.
  4. "Recommended Reading," The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, August 1955, p.94.
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