Henry Cecil Leon
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Henry Cecil Leon (September 19, 1902–May 23, 1976), who wrote under the pen-names Henry Cecil and Clifford Maxwell, was a judge and a writer of fiction about the British legal system. He was born near London in 1902 and was called to the Bar in 1923. Later in 1949 he was appointed a County Court Judge, a position he held until 1967. He used these experiences as inspiration for his work. His books are works of great comic genius with unpredictable twists of plot, but are not intended to be realistic or strong on characterization. They typically feature educated and genteel fraudsters and blackmailers who lay ludicrously ingenious plots exploiting loopholes in the legal system. There are several recurring characters, such as the drunken solicitor Mr Tewkesbury and the convoluted and exasperating witness Colonel Brain.
His 1955 novel Brothers in Law was made into a film in 1957 and, later, a television and radio series starring Richard Briers. While at Paramount Pictures, Alfred Hitchcock worked on adapting No Bail for the Judge for the screen several times between 1954 and 1960, and hoped to co-star Audrey Hepburn, Laurence Harvey, and John Williams, but the film was never produced.
Contents |
[edit] Works
[edit] Novels
- The Painswick Line (1951)
- No Bail for the Judge (1952)
- Ways and Means (1952)
- Natural Causes (1953)
- According to the Evidence (1954)
- Brothers in Law (1955)
- Friends at Court (1956)
- Much in Evidence (1957)
- Sober as a Judge (1958)
- Settled Out of Court (1959)
- Alibi for a Judge (1960)
- Daughters in Law (1961)
- Unlawful Occasions (1962)
- Independent Witness (1963)
- Fathers in Law (1965)
- The Asking Price (1966)
- A Woman Named Anne (1967)
- No Fear or Favour (1968)
- Tell You What I'll Do (1969)
- The Buttercup Spell (1971)
- The Wanted Man (1972)
- Truth With Her Boots On (1974)
- Cross Purposes (1976)
- Hunt the Slipper (1977)
[edit] Short story collections
- Full Circle (1948)
- Portrait of a Judge (1964)
- Brief Tales from the Bench (1968)
[edit] Non-fiction
- Brief to Counsel (1958)
- Not Such an Ass (1961)
- Tipping the Scales (1964)
- Know About English Law (1965)
- A Matter of Speculation: the Case of Lord Cochrane (1965)
- The English Judge (1970)
- Just Within the Law (1975) (autobiography)
