The Encluesiast

INTRODUCTION

Those familiar with Donald J. Sobol’s Encyclopedia Brown series might be surprised that I have chosen to devote this blog’s first original in-depth analysis to books for children. That type of literature is not, after all, this blog’s ostensible main focus. (However, I’m not the first Golden-Age-focused mystery blogger to tackle these books, as you can see here.) I have chosen to do this for two reasons:

First, the Encyclopedia Brown books were my introduction to fair-play mysteries—to spotting clues and using them to navigate towards a solution. Such was my devotion to these books that I would use them to entertain my fellow elementary-school students on long bus rides or field trips. I would retell the stories (keeping their basic plots, but making up new dialogue), challenging my classmates to solve them. (It’s somewhat surprising to me that there isn’t a stronger oral practice of telling mystery stories, like there is for horror stories or for jokes.) In some ways, these were also my first lessons in camouflaging clues. For many of these stories, I didn’t remember anything except for the basic set-up and the telltale clue. I therefore needed to improvise sufficient details to hide the solution. Thinking about this from a young age would serve me well when I eventually graduated to reading (and writing) adult mysteries.

Second, the clue and solution types that Sobol employs in these stories are not unique to children’s literature. They can be found in fair-play mysteries from the Golden Age to the present. (Indeed, as I will show in a future post for this blog, they are the foundation for many of the solutions in one of my favorite collections of Golden Age short stories: Edmund Crispin’s Fen Country.) I’m thus going to use them to build a taxonomy of the different clue types that I will refer to in many subsequent analyses.

For these posts, the fact that the stories are for children serves me well in two ways: (1) They are so short that it is easy to review a lot of them in one go. (2) Adult readers are less likely to object to having these stories spoiled for them. Thus, readers of future posts will hopefully not mind being directed to the next one for background information on the clue types.

In the rest of this post, I’m going to review the fifty stories that appear in Sobol’s first five Encyclopedia Brown books: Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective (1963); Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Secret Pitch (1965); Encyclopedia Brown Finds the Clues (1966); Encyclopedia Brown Gets His Man (1967); and Encyclopedia Brown Solves Them All (1968). For ease of reference I’m going to refer to the cases mostly by book number, then case number. So, for example, “2.3” would mean the second book (Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Secret Pitch), third case (“The Case of the Forgetful Sheriff”).

CHARACTERS AND GENERAL STYLE

The basic premise of the series is quite simple: Leroy Brown is the ten-year-old son of Chief Brown (the head of the police force in a town called Idaville) and his wife. (To my knowledge, their first names are never given.) Leroy is nicknamed “Encyclopedia” because his “head was like an encyclopedia. It was filled with facts he had learned from books. He was like a complete library walking around in sneakers.” (1.1). Thanks to Encyclopedia, “[i]n Idaville everyone who broke the law got caught” (4.1). Readers are reminded of this fact in the opening story of each collection, which also includes a thumbnail sketch of Idaville. (We are frequently told that it has four banks, three movie theaters, and two delicatessens.) This means that one can read the books completely out of order (as I’m sure I did as a child) without any ill effect.

(It should be noted that Encyclopedia Brown’s supposedly encyclopedic knowledge is not without gaps. He apparently doesn’t know that chocolate is poisonous to dogs, as he feeds some to one in 3.4!)

Besides Encyclopedia and his parents, there are two crucial recurring characters in the early books:

The first is Sally Kimball, Encyclopedia’s “bodyguard and junior partner.” The books consistently emphasize two facts about her: that she is “the prettiest girl in the fifth grade” (5.2) and that she is “Idaville’s best fighter under twelve years of age” (2.6). 

Those overeager to criticize the cultural values of anything from a bygone era might find two minor bones to pick with Sally Kimball’s portrayal: First, when she is introduced in The Case of Merko’s Grandson” (1.4), it is suggested that she is also very intelligent, barely less so than Encyclopedia himself. However, we never see this side of her again in future stories. She is simply the brawn to Encyclopedia’s brains. Second, in two of the early stories (2.6 and 3.4), Sally completely loses her head over a boy she’s attracted to and becomes haughty and indignant when Encyclopedia suggests that the boy might be up to no good.

I describe someone keen to find fault as “overeager” in this case, because to harp on those two details would be to overlook how progressive a character Sally was for children’s literature of the 1960s. She defies gender roles in a way that also makes (bio)logical sense. (Fifth-grade girls are generally stronger than fifth-grade boys.) But also she escapes a common dichotomy in the early-to-mid-20th-century portrayal of girls: seemingly, they can be feminine or they can be an athletic tomboy, but they cannot be both. Sally, however, is both feminine and athletic.

Because mid-20th-century private eye fiction (where male-female pairings are more common) is largely outside the scope of my interest, I cannot state with absolute confidence that Encyclopedia and Sally are the first pairing of male brains and female brawn in detective fiction. But if they are not, they are perhaps the earliest ones to become a major part of American popular culture. This dynamic cropped up again in 2000s TV in one very particular strain: male amateur brains with female professional brawn. The two touchstones of this dynamic are The Mentalist and Castle.

Besides Chief and Mrs. Brown and Sally, the other most important recurring character in the first five books is Bugs Meany, a leader of a gang of teenaged troublemakers called the Tigers, who have converted the toolshed behind Mr. Sweeny’s Auto Body Shop into their clubhouse. Leonard Shortall’s illustrations for the books do not depict Bugs as burly, as one might expect from a bully. Instead, he looks lanky, lazy, and sly. He also wears what I thought was a crown for most of my life, but which is actually a whoopee cap.

We will shortly review the impressive range of Bugs’s criminal activities. But Bugs does have one honorable feature: as soon as he’s caught in a lie, he gives up, even if there is no one around to enforce the rule of law. You do have to hand it to a villain like that. Maybe some of it is his fear of Sally, for every volume mentions and/or depicts an incident in which Sally beats the tar out of Bugs.

The fifth book introduces another antagonist, the young con artist Wilford Wiggins, who will become a fixture in the later books. But he appears in only one case in the five books that I survey in this post.

Before I move on to discussing the actual mysteries, I would be remiss if I did not mention one of the most distinctive and endearing trademarks of Sobol’s style: his love of humorous similes and analogies. Here are a few of my favorites:

“I don’t trust Bugs any farther than I can throw a cheese cake under water” (2.8)

“He’s like a set of false teeth — always trying to get even” (3.3)

“‘Sure,’ agreed Jim’s mouth. The rest of him looked as though he’d rather go over Niagara Falls on a salad plate.” (3.7)

“I tried talking to him, but it’s like crossing a mule with an otter. All you get are mutters.” (3.10)

“The heart of Bugs Meany was filled with a great longing. It was to knock Encyclopedia flatter than an elephant’s instep.” (5.2)

CASE TYPES

Encyclopedia Brown’s detective work spans the adult and child worlds. He solves crimes committed by adults (usually against other adults) and by children (usually against other children). Of the 50 cases in the first five books, 25 of them have a child or teenager as the culprit.

Most of these are incidents of petty theft. Sobol’s skill as a children’s author is displayed here by his choices of what is stolen. (It’s rarely money.) These paint a pleasingly colorful picture of Idaville’s oddball children. Some of the stolen objects are conventional mainstays of childhood, such as roller skates (1.9), a bicycle (2.10), or marbles (4.1). Some, however, are more eccentric, such as a rubber pillow (3.2), a tool chest (3.10), or a tooth collection (5.9). (The last of these is not what is stolen, but is the ultimate aim of the culprit.) And even when the object is something conventional, such as the camera in 4.4, the victim’s hobby or personality is eccentric—in this case, the victim, Fabius, is not a typical photography aficionado; he’s an amateur entomologist, who uses the camera to photograph bugs.

Most of these child-focused cases are brought to Encyclopedia and Sally through their detective agency, which Encyclopedia runs out of his parents’ garage. It is perhaps best known to readers for its sign, which reads (in part):

NO CASE TOO SMALL

25 Cents Per Day Plus Expenses

Not all Encyclopedia’s cases-for-hire are involve child victims. In some cases, although a child is the client, the victim is an adult, whose business a child has become mixed up in.

Ten of the 50 cases that I examined feature Bugs Meany as the antagonist. Four of these are simple thefts (1.2, 3.2, 4.2, 5.1). Three are bits of flim-flam: trying to sell a fake Civil War sword (1.3), forging a document to win a bet (2.1), and claiming to have invented a special martial arts move (5.2). The remaining three involving framing someone else for a crime. In two cases, Bugs tries to frame Encyclopedia himself (2.8, 3.3) as revenge for the boy detective’s interference in Bugs’s affairs; in another case, Bugs tries to frame someone else in order to illicitly obtain something they own as recompense (5.9).

Most of the adult cases are brought to Encyclopedia by his father. These fall into two main categories: 

The first are “dinner table cases.” Chief Brown has a case at work that he can’t solve. So, he tells Encyclopedia the facts over dinner and Encyclopedia usually solves it before dessert. (On one of the few occasions when Encyclopedia needs more time than that [1.5], we are explicitly told that Mrs. Brown is disappointed.) There are six of these cases (1.1, 1.5, 1.7, 2.2, 3.1, 5.6). All but one of them is a robbery. The exception is 2.2, which is a kidnapping. A possible reason for this focus on theft is that Sobol cannot choose crimes that are too “adult” for children (whether because they’re too violent, like a murder, or because they’re too difficult to understand). These cases are not necessarily violence-free, however; Sobol’s robbery victims are quite liable to be assaulted too.

The second are cases where Chief Brown is called to the scene of a crime and Encyclopedia is allowed to tag along. There are seven of these: 1.6, 2.5, 2.9, 3.9, 4.5, 5.5, 5.8. Four of them are robberies or thefts: 1.6, 2.5, 3.9, and 4.5. A word here about robberies and thefts in Encyclopedia Brown’s world: they are mostly committed by the supposed victim, most often to collect insurance money. (Honestly, it’s not the citizens of Idaville who owe Encyclopedia Brown the greatest thanks. It’s the insurance companies!) 

3.9 is a variation on this, where the supposed victim of the theft is doing it for the attention. Even before they arrive on the crime scene, Chief Brown assumes that this is going to be fraud. Why? Because the supposed victim is an actress, and everyone knows that actors and actresses are scum! Seriously, that’s Chief Brown’s attitude. His moralizing on this subject is truly startling:

“May I go along?” cried Encyclopedia.

“Ordinarily I’d say no,” answered Chief Brown. “But this case is different. It may teach you something about movie people. Let’s go.”

Sitting beside his father in the car, Encyclopedia asked, “What did you mean by the remark about movie people?”

“Movie people,” said Chief Brown, “will do anything to get their names and pictures in the news.”

“Do you think the statue wasn’t stolen?” exclaimed Encyclopedia. “Why would Miss Wentworth make it up? Just to get a news story to help her picture, The Stolen Lamb? That would be plain dishonest!”

“Actors aren’t like other people,” said Chief Brown. “They don’t care about what is right or wrong as long as they get attention.”

Holy heck, Sobol! What actor or actress hurt you?

There is one additional main type of adult case, and that is “historical” ones: someone (such as a tour guide) tells a tale about a folk hero of times past. And upon hearing the story, Encyclopedia proves that the hero was a sham, whose name should go down in infamy. These are cases 2.3, 2.4, and 5.3. 

In addition to all of the above are cases where Encyclopedia Brown is going about his day and stumbles into the middle of a crime being committed. (He is something of a juvenile Jessica Fletcher this way.) These include 1.5, 1.9, 2.6, 2.7, 3.5, 3.10, 4.3, 4.7, 4.8, 5.4, and 5.6. (Others might count depending on how strict one is about the definition.) They are a mix of child and adult cases.

This post has been an overview of the series’s premise, characters, and case types. I have painstakingly listed all of this information to show you just how much thought Sobol puts into keeping things diverse and thus avoid monotony. The next post will be on the true motivation for this examination: the clue and solution types.