9 h 48 minAudiobook14 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 love gentle comedy, small-town characters and detective stories that poke fun at the genre. If you enjoy deadpan humor and heroes who win by luck and kindness, Gubb will keep you smiling.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A student detective meets a would-be swindler
- A circus brings both crime and love
- A tattoo mystery and a father's lost daughter
- Dime novel terror in a flooded hotel
- Un-burglars, a jailed reporter and a two-cent stamp
- A chicken, a carnival and a pea shooter murder
- A missing man, a joke will and a stalker of mysteries
- Pirates, a pig and a tramp's story
- Money, love and the cost of every message
- Disguises, lessons and a deadpan voice
Who’s who
- Philo GubbA tall, gentle paperhanger in Riverbank who trains as a detective by mail and wants to win Syrilla while paying off his gold stock.
- SyrillaThe Fat Lady of a traveling side show, kind and dreamy, who longs to become a refined society lady and sends telegrams about her diet.
- Jonas MedderbrookA rich, stingy Riverbank man, once a circus contortionist, who loves money and golf, sells Gubb gold mine stock and sells him Syrilla's telegrams.
- Billy GetzThe town's endless practical joker, thirty years old and bald, who plays tricks on Gubb with his gang of young men called the Kidders.
- Marshal Smith WittakerRiverbank's chief of police, a pipe-smoking man who laughs at Gubb but often ends up needing his strange luck.
- Snooks TurnerA sharp young city editor of the Riverbank Eagle who hires Gubb while sitting in jail and wants to marry Nan.
- Mr. CritzA plump, kindly looking would-be swindler who practices the shell game with Gubb and wants to learn how to sell a gold brick.
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Philo Gubb, Correspondence-School Detective
by Ellis Parker Butler · 1918
Paperhanger Philo Gubb fights Iowa crime with twelve mail-order lessons and a trunk of false beards.
Medium level5–10 hours to readEnglish
Excellent
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In short
What happens when a gentle paperhanger in a small Iowa town decides to become a detective by mail? Philo Gubb of Riverbank has twelve lessons from the Rising Sun Detective Agency, a diploma, a badge, and a closet of false beards.
Philo Gubb, Correspondence-School Detective at a glance
- Reading time
- About 5 h 35 min4 h 25 min fast, 6 h 35 min slow
- Length
- 79,300 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1918by Ellis Parker Butler
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A student detective meets a would-be swindler
The book opens in a rented bedroom where Philo Gubb, paperhanger and student detective, peers through a crack in the door. He is tall, thin and gentle, a human flamingo with a mild heart. His roommate Mr. Critz is practicing with walnut shells, a rubber pea and a glittering gold brick.
Mr. Critz looks like a kindly shopkeeper. He has been cheated so often that he plans to start cheating others, and he learns his craft from a book called The Complete Con Man. His shell game fails again and again, because the pea keeps rolling onto the floor.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 14 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1918
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 6 h 20 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Butler, Ellis Parker. Philo Gubb, Correspondence-School Detective. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/philo-gubb-correspondence-school-detective.
Butler, E. P. (2026). Philo Gubb, correspondence-school detective. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/philo-gubb-correspondence-school-detective (Original work published 1918)
Butler, Ellis Parker. Philo Gubb, Correspondence-School Detective. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/philo-gubb-correspondence-school-detective.
@book{butler2026philo,
author = {Butler, Ellis Parker},
title = {Philo Gubb, Correspondence-School Detective},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/philo-gubb-correspondence-school-detective},
note = {First published 1918}
}
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What is Philo Gubb, Correspondence-School Detective about?
It follows Philo Gubb, a paperhanger in Riverbank, Iowa, who becomes a detective by mail. Each chapter is a new case, from swindlers and circus freaks to pirates and a double will, linked by his love for Syrilla.
Who is Syrilla in Philo Gubb?
Syrilla is the Fat Lady of a traveling side show, kind, romantic and dreaming of a refined life. Gubb falls in love with her at first sight, and her telegrams about losing weight run through the book.
What is the Rising Sun Detective Agency's Correspondence School?
It is the mail-order school in Slocum, Ohio, that gives Gubb twelve lessons, a diploma, a badge and a catalog of numbered disguises. He quotes its lessons by number and trusts them completely.
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.
More by Ellis Parker Butler
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