Diogenes Small

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Diogenes Small is a fictional character created by the British crime writer Colin Dexter; the supposed author of numerous historical and other works.

One of the distinctive features of Dexter's Inspector Morse novels is the use of quotations as chapter headings, which began in the second novel in the series, Last Seen Wearing (1976), and then in every novel from the fourth, Service of all the Dead (1979), onwards. However, it was not always possible to find suitable quotations for every chapter, so many are simply invented by Dexter and attributed to non-existent sources, the most common of which was Diogenes Small. Over twenty years, Dexter created a lengthy bibliography for the fictional author, including Small's Enlarged Dictionary which apparently ran to at least 17 editions within Small's tragically short lifespan.

From time to time, these supposed quotations have appeared elsewhere, such as in newspapers with a "thought for the day" or "humorous quotes" feature, possibly because the contributors admired Dexter's conceit, or simply because they failed to recognise that the attributions are false.