The Long Farewell: A Sir John Appleby Mystery [Paperback]

Michael Innes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1991

Lewis Packford, the great Shakespearean scholar, was thought to have discovered a book annotated by the Bard - but there is no trace of this valuable object when Packford apparently commits suicide. Sir John Appleby finds a mixed bag of suspects at the dead man's house, who might all have a good motive for murder. The scholars and bibliophiles who were present might have been tempted by the precious document in Packford's possession. And Appleby discovers that Packford had two secret marriages, and that both of these women were at the house at the time of his death.

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Harpercollins (February 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060805757
• ISBN-13: 978-0060805753
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,134,445 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

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5.0 out of 5 stars "Farewell, farewell...why did I marry", March 24, 2004

By 

E. A. Lovitt "starmoth" (Gladwin, MI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Long Farewell: A Sir John Appleby Mystery (Paperback)

Sex rarely rears its oh-so-indiscreet head in mysteries starring Sir John Appleby, Michael Innes's donnish detective. When it does, it is usually adorned in the lineaments of farce, as is the case in "The Long Farewell" (1958).

Lewis Packford, the great Shakespearean scholar, has come to marriage late in his bookish career, and it has enchanted him so thoroughly that he goes to the altar twice---without an intervening divorce. When both wives simultaneously descend upon Urchins, his ancestral mansion, he appears to take the easy way out of his bigamous dilemma. He is found in his library (most of Innes's corpses are to be found in libraries) with a bullet through his head, a revolver in his hand, and a suicide note with the ink still wet, by his side.

Most appropriately, the suicide note is a quotation from the Bard--not Othello's "Farewell, farewell...why did I marry," as you might expect. It is rather "Farewell, a long farewell..." from Cardinal Wolsey's soliloquy in Shakespeare's "King Henry the VIII" (Act III, Scene 2).

Packford had been dropping hints about the discovery of a sixteenth-century Italian manuscript, annotated by Shakespeare himself, as the framework for his "Othello," but this priceless object seems to have disappeared from the scholar's library upon his death.

Sir John Appleby finds it difficult to believe that Packford committed suicide (he thinks the suicide note is a bit uninventive for such a brilliant scholar), so he invites himself up to Urchins where he is introduced to the two angry wives, plus a house party of scholars and bibliophiles who were present at the time of death.

Might the missing manuscript be connected with Packford's death? Did one of his wives take it upon herself to murder the bigamous bibliophile? Or did Packford really commit suicide?

Sir John weighs in to another notable mixture of crime and scholarship, English eccentrics and American millionaires, farce, murder, and crumbling gothic masonry. "The Long Farewell" is a delightful mystery and by the time the body count reached three, even I had fingered the correct suspect.