Working name of UK writer Ernest Brammah Smith (1868-1942) for all his writing; he is best-known for two series, the Max Carrados books about a blind detective, all of whose perceptions (except sight) are enormously enhanced (see Checklist), and a series of tales in which the Chinese Kai Lung tells stories – often to stave off some unpleasant fate, like Scheherazade. Although only two Carrados stories contain supernatural elements, the blind hero's extraordinary abilities – such as reading small print with his fingertips and shooting accurately at targets perceived only by sound – verge upon Superpowers. The China which Kai Lung inhabits has numerous features of the fantasy Land of Fable, and many of the embedded tales are fantasy; all are told in an ornate manner which ironically, often hilariously, exaggerates the old Chinese tradition of understatement and politesse. The main sequence begins with The Wallet of Kai Lung (coll 1900; cut vt The Transmutation of Ling 1911 chap) and ends with Kai Lung Beneath the Mulberry Tree (coll 1940); of the posthumous collections (see Checklist), Kai Lung Raises His Voice (coll 2010) usefully assembles all the remaining series stories.

Bramah's one sf novel is What Might Have Been: The Story of a Social War (1907 anon; with new preface vt The Secret of the League: The Story of a Social War 1909 as by Bramah), a somewhat tedious anti-socialist melodrama involving flight with belted-on mechanical wings; the sequel, a Future War tale called "The War Hawks" (September 1909 Pall Mall Magazine), is collected in The Specimen Case (coll 1924). A Little Flutter (1930), though deploying an unlikely five-foot-two (1.6 metres) bird known as the Patagonian Groo-Groo, is nonfantastic social comedy. [JC/DRL]

Ernest Brammah Smith

born Manchester, England: 20 March 1868

died Weston-Super-Mare, Somerset: 23 June 1942

works

Kai Lung

• The Wallet of Kai Lung (London: Grant Richards, 1900) [coll: Kai Lung: hb/]
  • The Transmutation of Ling (London: Grant Richards, 1911) [novella taken from the above: chap: Kai Lung: hb/]
• Kai Lung's Golden Hours (London: Grant Richards, 1922) [coll: intro by Hilaire Belloc: Kai Lung: hb/E L]
• Kai Lung Unrolls his Mat (London: The Richards Press, 1928) [coll: Kai Lung: hb/S G Hulme Beaman]
  • The Story of Wan and the Remarkable Shrub and The Story of Ching-Kwei and the Destinies (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1927) [coll: chap: two stories from the previous volume: Kai Lung: hb/]
  • Kin Weng and the Miraculous Tusk (Birmingham, England: City of Birmingham School of Printing, 1941) [story: taken from the above: Kai Lung: hb/]
  • The Kai Lung Omnibus (London: Philip Allan, 1936); [omni of The Wallet of Kai Lung, Kai Lung's Golden Hours and Kai Lung Unrolls his Mat: Kai Lung: hb/]
• The Moon of Much Gladness: as Related by Kai Lung (London: Cassell, 1932) [Kai Lung: hb/]
  • The Return of Kai Lung (New York: Sheridan House, 1937) [coll: Kai Lung: hb/]
• Kai Lung Beneath the Mulberry Tree (London: The Richards Press, 1940) [coll: Kai Lung: hb/Hookway Cowles]
• The Celestial Omnibus (London: John Baker for The Richards Press, 1963) [coll: stories selected from previous volumes: Kai Lung: hb/nonpictorial]
• Kai Lung: Six: Uncollected Stories from Punch (Tacoma, Washington: Non-Profit Press, 1974) [coll: chap: Kai Lung: hb/uncredited]
• Kai Lung Raises His Voice (Norwich, Norfolk: Durrant Publishing, 2010) [coll: comprising the six stories from Kai Lung: Six above, the one from The Specimen Case below, and four previously unpublished tales: Kai Lung: pb/from Jin Liying (1772-1807)]

Max Carrados

• Max Carrados (London: Grant Richards, 1914) [coll: Max Carrados: hb/]
• The Eyes of Max Carrados (London: Grant Richards, 1923) [coll: Max Carrados: hb/]
• Max Carrados Mysteries (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1927) [coll: Max Carrados: hb/]
• The Bravo of London (London: Cassell and Company, 1934) [Max Carrados: hb/]

individual titles

• English Farming, and Why I Turned it Up (London: Leadenhall Press, 1894) [nonfiction: hb/]
• The Mirror of Kong Ho (London: Chapman and Hall, 1905) [hb/]
• What Might Have Been: The Story of a Social War as Anonymous (London: John Murray, 1907) [hb/]
  • The Secret of the League (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1909) as Ernest Bramah [vt of the above: hb/]
• The Specimen Case (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1924) [coll: contains a Kai Lung and a Max Carrados story, and others: hb/]
• Ernest Bramah (London: George G Harrap, 1929) [coll: hb/]
• A Little Flutter (London: Cassell, 1930) [hb/]

about the author

• Aubrey Wilson. The Search for Ernest Bramah (London: Creighton and Read, 2007) [nonfiction: hb/Tony Denton, based on Bramah book jackets]

links

• David Langford. "Ernest Bramah: Crime and Chinoiserie" (1991 Million/Interzone) [mag/]

Previous versions of this entry

• 17/09/2011
• 17/12/2011