Leon Clifton

Leon Clifton is a fictional detective, a protagonist of numerous Czech language detective stories of early 20th century. He is a brilliant American detective, master of disguise, capable to solve any mystery.[1]

Publications and authorship

The stories, presented as authentic memoirs of an American detective translated from English,[1] were initially published by Rudolf Storch in Czechoslovakia during 1906-1911, 275 stories in total.[2] Later publications (by other editors) were mostly either re-editions, or revised editions.[3] These stories represented a phenomenon of Czech literature and were commonly known as cliftonky ("cliftonians", "Clifton tales"; singular: cliftonka). The authorship of the stories is not well attested. The digital archive of Czech Academy of Sciences states that the only confirmed author of cliftonky was Alfons Bohumil Šťastný. [2] The authorship was established only after Šťastný's death when his widow started pursuing the copyrights.[1] Another probable author was Czech actor and comedy and play writer Jaroslav Pulda.

Influence

Other authors were inspired by cliftonky as well. For example, in 1925 Slovak writer Bedřich Beneš Buchlovan published "Nejposlednější dobrodružství Leona Cliftona" [The Last Adventure of Leon Clifton].[1] Jiří Voskovec and Jan Werich produced a parody play "Gorila ex machina čili Leon Clifton čili Tajemství Cliftonova kladívka", premiered in 1928.[1] During 1991-1994, Jaroslav Velinský, after writing over 30 stories about detective Ota Fink, tried to resurrect Clifton and published 5 cliftonky, with little success.

Some of the best cliftonky were recorded by Czech Radio.[4]

Chech author Jaroslav Foglar in his childhood used to read cliftonky much and even copy them for sale, earning 20 heller per copy. This initially affected his literary style, and some of the first editions of his books were to be corrected later, to get rid of the literary slag.[5][6]

Literary criticism

Cliftonky were a popular leisure reading of low literary value (paraliterature, pulp fiction).

A notable feature of cliftonky was an accent on the final punishment of "bad guys".[1]

Ivan Adamovič in his Dictionary of Czech Literary Fantasy and Science Fiction brings an attention to fantastic elements in some cliftonky.[1]

gollark: Your brand loyalty troubles me.
gollark: Also, you could... get that quite easily on STM32/ESP32/whatever boards?
gollark: i.e. they nominally are but you cannot actually get them for that much, especially in quantity.
gollark: It's probably "$4" like the Pi Zero is "$5".
gollark: Technically, you can emulate any chip ever with sufficient computing power.

References
  1. Ivo Fencl, "Kdo byl vlastně Léon Clifton" (also here)
  2. "Cliftonky", Ústav pro českou literaturu AV ČR, v. v. i. Digitální archiv populární literatury
  3. "Anna Tylová - Nakladatelství krátkých dobrodružných příběhů pro chlapce v Praze"
  4. "Clevelandský smrtihlav Léona Cliftona", dvdinform.cz, September 8, 2007
  5. Ivo Fencl, "Foglar utiskovaný, Foglar opisující, Foglar vítězný"
  6. Ivo Fencl, Ježek v kleci. Rozhovor s Foglarem uprostřed osmdesátých let

 Czech Wikisource has original text related to this article: Safírový prsten, a Clifton story

  • Michal Jareš, CLIFTONOVO STOLETÍ [The Century of Clifton], a M.S. thesis, 2018. Contains an annotated bibliography of available sources on the subject
  • Z pamětí amerického detektiva Léona Cliftona, 2018, ISBN 978-80-87170-53-3. Contains 50 cliftonky, as well as a fictional biography of Léon Clifton.
  • Otakar Chaloupka, detektivka: Léon Clifton se vrací, a book preface
  • Digitalizovaný český brak: Americký detektiv i erotika u moře [Digitized Czech junk literature: American detective and erotica by the sea], CT24, July 25, 2013. A report about the Digital Archive of Popular Literature, with an emphasis on cliftonky
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