9 h 48 minAudiobook4 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
For readers who love gentle American humor, parodies of detective stories, and short tales that can be enjoyed one at a time. Philo Gubb’s disguises, earnest blunders and small-town cases offer a kindly comic view of detective work.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A paperhanger decides to become a detective
- Disguises are the heart of the method
- Cases that go wrong in useful ways
- What the humor says about books and bluff
Who’s who
- Philo GubbA small-town paperhanger who studies detective work by mail and sets out to solve cases, wearing disguises and trusting his lessons completely.
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- Audiobook
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- 15-minute summary
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- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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Philo Gubb, Correspondence-School Detective
by Ellis Parker Butler · 1918
A small-town paperhanger trusts a mail-order detective course to guide him through cases his confidence cannot solve.
Medium level5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
Philo Gubb, Correspondence-School Detective is a book of humorous stories by the American writer Ellis Parker Butler, published in 1918. Its hero is a small-town man who earns his living hanging wallpaper.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A paperhanger decides to become a detective
The first thing to know is that Philo Gubb is an ordinary tradesman. He lives in a small Midwestern town, the kind of place where everyone knows everyone and crime is rare. His real work is putting up wallpaper, and he is not ashamed of it.
But Gubb has caught a different ambition. He has studied a detective course by post, and he takes its lessons with perfect seriousness. To him the manual is not a pamphlet but a calling. He believes that a person who follows the lessons can solve any case.
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What is Philo Gubb about?
It is a collection of comic stories about a small-town paperhanger who studies detective work by mail. He takes up cases in his town, using disguises and lessons from his course, with funny and mixed results.
Who wrote Philo Gubb, Correspondence-School Detective?
The American humorist Ellis Parker Butler wrote it. It appeared in book form in 1918. He is also known for the short story Pigs Is Pigs and for many other comic tales of small-town life.
Is Philo Gubb a parody of detective stories?
Yes, in a gentle way. The book plays with ideas from detective fiction, such as disguises and clever methods, and shows how they fare in a quiet town when a very ordinary man tries them.
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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