Albert Campion

Albert Campion is a pseudonym used by a man who was born in 1900 into a prominent British aristocratic family. Early novels hint that he was part of the Royal Family but this suggestion is dropped in later works. However, it's hinted at again in Cargo of Eagles, Allingham's last novel. He was educated at Rugby School and the (fictitious) St. Ignatius' College, Cambridge (according to a mini-biography included in Sweet Danger; this is also hinted at in Police at the Funeral). Ingenious, resourceful and well-educated, in his 20s he assumed the name Campion and began a life as an adventurer and detective.

Campion is thin, blond, wears horn-rimmed glasses, and is often described as affable, inoffensive and bland, with a deceptively blank and unintelligent expression. He is, nonetheless, a man of authority and action, and considers himself to be a helpful and comforting 'Uncle Albert' to friends and those in need. In some stories, he lives in a flat above a police station at Number 17A, Bottle Street in Piccadilly, London. In the early stories he has a pet jackdaw called Autolycus.

The name 'Campion' may have its origin in the Old French word for 'champion'.[3] Another source says the name was suggested by Allingham's husband, Philip Youngman Carter, and may allude to the Jesuit martyr St. Edmund Campion. Carter and St. Edmund Campion were both graduates of Christ's Hospital school. Campion's fictional college, St. Ignatius, supports the Edmund Campion connection, since St. Ignatius of Loyola was the founder of the Jesuits.[4] There are also occasional references in the books to the field-flower campion (e.g., Look to the Lady ch. 21), evoking the similar relationship between the fictional hero the Scarlet Pimpernel and the pimpernel flower.

'Albert Campion' is revealed early on to be a pseudonym. In Mystery Mile and Police at the Funeral, his true first name is said to be Rudolph, while his surname begins with a K. In The Fashion in Shrouds he also mentions his first name being Rudolph but confides he changed it, asking people to call him Albert as he did not like the name Rudolph. In Look to the Lady the butler reveals to Lugg that he has deduced who Campion is by a particular feature of his pyjamas which he has also seen on Campion's elder brother's pyjamas.

Campion has used many other names in the course of his career. 'Mornington Dove' (although in the 1988 Avon edition (page 72) of 'The Black Dudley Murder', and in the 1950 UK Penguin edition of "the Crime at Black Dudley", he is called 'Mornington Dodd') and 'the Honourable Tootles Ash' are mentioned in The Crime at Black Dudley; 'Christopher Twelvetrees' and 'Orlando' are mentioned in Look to the Lady.

Allingham makes various references to Campion's aristocratic background, and hints at a connection to royalty in several asides. A study of the books suggests his father was a viscount and was already dead at the start of the series.[5] Campion's mother is mentioned several times and writes a letter in The Fashion in Shrouds, and Campion borrows a car from his older brother (apparently the current holder of the title) in Mystery Mile, but neither of them appears in person. In Sweet Danger, it was mentioned that his brother was 'still unmarried' and therefore Campion is likely to 'come into the title some day.' In Coroner's Pidgin a character mentions Campion's uncle, a bishop, and says, 'Let me see, you're the only nephew now, aren't you?' This indicates that, by the middle of the Second World War, Campion's older brother Herbert has died and Campion has inherited the title.

In More Work For the Undertaker, set just after the war, Lugg addresses Campion sarcastically as 'young Viscount Clever'. Campion's sister Valentine Ferris plays a central part in The Fashion in Shrouds; in that book, it is revealed that they are both estranged from most of their family. In Police at the Funeral, the venerable Caroline Faraday is aware of his true identity, and knows his grandmother Emily (whom she refers to as 'The Dowager') – she calls him by his real name, 'Rudolph', and states at one point that the rest of his family blame Emily for encouraging Campion in his adventurous ways.

From Mystery Mile onwards, Campion is normally aided by his manservant, Magersfontein Lugg, an uncouth, rough-and-tumble fellow who used to be a burglar. Campion is good friends with Inspector (later Superintendent) Stanislaus Oates of Scotland Yard, who is as by-the-book as Campion is unorthodox, and in later books with Oates's protégé Inspector Charles Luke.

In wartime, Campion is involved in intelligence work, and after the war he continues to have an unspecified connection to the secret services.

Campion also has many friends and allies, seemingly scattered all across London and the English countryside, often including professional criminals. In the short story "The Meaning of the Act" Campion explains to Oates that the secret of his success is to 'take a drink with anyone, and pick your pals where you find 'em'.[6]

In Mystery Mile Campion is subtly shown to be in love with Biddy Paget, around whose home most of the story revolves; Campion is distraught when, at the end of the adventure, she marries an American, and his sadness at losing her is mentioned again in subsequent stories.

After a doomed passion for a married woman in Dancers in Mourning, Campion eventually marries Amanda Fitton, who first appears in Sweet Danger as a 17-year-old and later becomes an aircraft engineer; they have a son, named Rupert. Her brother Hal recovers the family title of Earl of Pontisbright as a result of the adventures described in Sweet Danger, and Amanda then becomes Lady Amanda, as the sister of an Earl.

Crime writer Mike Ripley completed an unfinished Campion manuscript, started by Philip Youngman Carter before his death.[7] The fragment, which contained revisions and minor corrections but no plot outline, character synopsis or plan, was bequeathed to Margery Allingham's sister Joyce; upon her death in 2001, the manuscript was left to officials of the Margery Allingham Society.[8] Beginning in 2012, Ripley, with the approval and agreement of the Margery Allingham Society, completed Youngman Carter's manuscript, which has become Mr Campion's Farewell. The novel was published in March 2014 by Severn House Publishers.[9] Succeeding volumes were entirely Ripley's work.

The Campion stories are generally adventures rather than true mysteries, as they rarely feature puzzles that the reader has a chance of solving; it is the characters and situations which carry the story. Most of the novels are short by modern standards – about 200 pages long.

• Books featuring Albert Campion at Faded Page
• An article about Campion from the Strand Magazine
• An Allingham bibliography, with dates and publishers, from the UK Margery Allingham Society
• A series of Allingham plot summaries, including many Campion books, from the UK Margery Allingham Society
• Another Allingham bibliography, with more alternative titles and links to summaries
• Campion at IMDb
• Dancers in Mourning (1959) at IMDb
• Death of a Ghost (1960) at IMDb