April 27, 1904. Cecil Day-Lewis arrived this day in Ballintubbert, Ireland. He reached great success for his verse, becoming the poet laureate in 1968. But what interests us today is that in 1935 Day-Lewis concluded, as many others have, that there wasn't enough money in poetry, so he wrote a crime novel.
A Question of Proof introduced amateur sleuth Nigel Strangeways, supposedly modeled on the author's mentor, W.H. Auden. He went on to write 19 more crime novels (through 1968), most featuring Strangeways.
