Next Tuesday's Friends of Fryer Event is "Investigating Arthur Upfield": a panel discussion about Upfield, the first Australian professional writer of detective novels. Panellist and co-editor, Kees de Hoog, blogs about how his interest in Upfield developed...

My interest in Arthur Upfield really began in the 1960s when I was a teenager. I remember reading quite a few Bony novels over that time.

I was still enjoying detection fiction in 2001. In addition to the Bony novels, I had read Sherlock Holmes, Dorothy L Sayers and Agatha Christie stories. I also admired those who researched the life and works of authors, such as Richard Usborne's work on PG Wodehouse and C Northcote Parkinson's work on Hornblower. When I decided to research an Australian author, Arthur Upfield really chose himself - there was no contest.

When I started in late 2001, there were only two published books about Upfield. The first is Follow my dust by Jessica Hawk. I enjoyed the anecdotes but it effectively ends in 1930 (Upfield lived until 1964). The other book is The spirit of Australia by Ray B Browne published in 1988, but it relies heavily on Follow and, to my mind, contains some strange ideas about Upfield. Apart from bookseller lists of the Bony titles with short biographies (and many errors), one superficial website, and a new discussion site called Famous Folk Forum, there was not much information online about Upfield.

However the Forum lead me to The Bony Bulletin, an occasional newsletter about Arthur Upfield and his works published, edited and largely written by Philip T Asdell from 1981 to 1990. I obtained a copy from The University of Queensland Library, which holds a complete set. Reading it for the first time felt like striking gold. It has bibliographical information, a few of Upfield's short stories, magazine and newspaper articles about Upfield and his works, research about various aspects of his works such the location of each Bony story, and much, much more.

My Arthur Upfield, Creator of Bony website began in 2005 as a page in the website of a book and magazine collector in New South Wales; early versions are archived in the National Library of Australia. In 2011, I moved it to the present site and now compile it myself.

I was very keen to publish a collection of scholarly articles about Upfield and his works. I had exchanged emails several times with Carol Hetherington through her work at AustLit. Carol had also researched Upfield's works, and she praised my work in an article she had written about Upfield. I was very pleased when she agreed to join the project; without her expertise and hard work the book may never have materialised.

Carol lives in Brisbane and I live in Perth, so we used phones, Skype and emails to communicate and exchange documents. The book launch will enable us to meet in person for first time.

Kees de Hoog has BSc and MBA degrees from the University of Western Australia. He maintains the Arthur Upfield: Creator of "Bony" internet site, and has published three anthologies of Upfield's short works, four of his non-Bony novels, and two related books. At present he is co-compiling a bibliography of the Upfield books first published in Australia, the UK and the US.

Download (319.66 KB) an invitation to the event.