9 h 48 minAudiobook6 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 9 h 48 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if your town’s newest detective trusts his mail-order lessons more than the evidence of his own mistakes?
Philo Gubb hangs wallpaper for a living, but his ambitions reach beyond the next wall. His correspondence course tells him detectives are the finest people on earth, and he takes it seriously. In Ellis Parker Butler’s humorous stories, this small-town tradesman sets out to solve mysteries with complete faith in lessons that real life refuses to follow.
In a Midwestern town where everyone knows everyone and crime is rare, missing things, absent people, and gossip give Gubb work to do. His course puts disguises at the heart of detection, and he embraces them. The stories bring his grand confidence up against ordinary troubles, gently poking fun at detective fiction and the promise of quick expertise.
What you’ll discover
- A most unlikely sleuth Meet a paperhanger whose faith in his detective training runs far ahead of his skill.
- Disguises taken to heart Enjoy the comic results when Gubb treats passing as someone else as essential detective work.
- Small mysteries, spreading gossip Follow missing things and absent people through a town where suspicions travel by word of mouth.
- Book learning meets life Discover a gentle satire of mail-order expertise and the heroic detectives celebrated in popular fiction.
- Affection beneath the laughter Spend time with ordinary small-town people in stories that favor warmth over hard-edged mystery.
Who will love it
Readers who enjoy gentle farce, small-town characters and detective stories turned upside down will love Gubb. It suits anyone who likes a running joke, a lovable fool and a string of short, self-contained cases.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A student detective nets the Hard-Boiled Egg
- A circus, a corpse and a stolen cup
- A tattoo, a daughter and a bargain price
- Dynamiters, an oubliette and an un-burglar
- Clients who pay him for nothing
- Odd cases from wills to wiggles
- Impostors, pirates and a clever pig
- Love, the telegrams and the last case
- How Butler tells the joke
Who’s who
- Philo GubbA tall, gaunt paperhanger and mail-order detective who wears numbered disguises, trusts his twelve lessons, and wants to marry Syrilla.
- SyrillaThe Fat Lady of a circus side show, a placid, refined-minded woman who dreams of dieting her way into a proper home.
- Jonas MedderbrookA rich Riverbank man and former contortionist who offers Gubb a reward for finding his lost daughter and pays it in gold mine stock.
- Billy GetzThe spoiled town joker who leads the Kidders and keeps planning pranks to scare or fool the detective.
- Marshal WittakerThe Riverbank police chief, who enjoys Gubb's cases and tries to handle real crime when it grows serious.
- Pie-Wagon PeteA sharp-eyed lunch wagon keeper from the city who watches Gubb's habits and helps him in his early detective work.
- Mr. DorganThe side show manager who holds Syrilla to her contract and keeps a concrete petrified man as an attraction.
- Snooks TurnerA young newspaper reporter who hires Gubb from jail to explain why he has been charged with burglary.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
- On your phone, tablet, computer or Kindle, with the type as large as you like.
- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 9 h 48 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 6 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Philo Gubb, detective por correspondencia
by Ellis Parker Butler · 1918
A paperhanger with twelve mail-order lessons and a trunk of false whiskers keeps catching crooks by pure accident.
Medium level5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
Meet a tall, gaunt paperhanger who sends away for twelve mail-order detective lessons and puts his faith in their rules. Philo Gubb, Correspondence-School Detective, by Ellis Parker Butler, is set in the small river town of Riverbank, Iowa.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A student detective nets the Hard-Boiled Egg
Philo Gubb is a paperhanger and a student of the Rising Sun Detective Agency. He peers through a crack in the door at his roommate, Mr. Critz, a plump, kindly old man practicing a shell game.
Critz says he means to turn con man, and he needs an honest looking partner. Gubb agrees to help. His friend Pie-Wagon Pete grows interested in the description. The old man sounds just like a famous crook called the Hard-Boiled Egg.
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What is Philo Gubb, Correspondence-School Detective about?
It follows Philo Gubb, a paperhanger in Riverbank, Iowa, who learns detection from twelve mail-order lessons. He takes cases involving circuses, swindlers, wills, pirates and murder, and solves them through odd logic and luck.
Who is Syrilla in the Philo Gubb stories?
Syrilla is the Fat Lady of a circus side show. Gubb falls in love with her, and her dieting telegrams, sent through her father, form a running joke.
Is Philo Gubb a collection of short stories?
Yes, it is a set of linked comic tales rather than one plot. Each story is a separate case with its own mystery, while characters like Billy Getz, Medderbrook and Marshal Wittaker keep returning.
The author
Ellis Parker Butler
1869–1937 · American humorist
Ellis Parker Butler (1869–1937) was an American writer born in Muscatine, Iowa. He later lived in Flushing, New York, and died in Massachusetts. He wrote short stories and novels, including Pigs Is Pigs (1906) and Philo Gubb, Correspondence-School Detective (1918). His writing also appeared in American magazines.
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