I don't know a lot about Anthony Boucher beyond his being a
mystery reviewer for the NYTimes and a sometime writer. I
think "Bouchercon" is named for him, but I'm not even sure
what "Bouchercon" is. ANYWAY, I was doing research on Kenneth
Millar (Ross Macdonald) at UC Irvine and found letters from
Boucher to Millar that were hilarious for one simple reason:
they contained pornographic (and I mean graphic) limericks. I
was expecting some kind of insightful exchange about the
status of the mystery genre, and I get something along the
lines of "There once was a man from Nantucket," only
raunchier. One was a "tenson" -- a longish debate poem. In
this one, which is in limerick stanzas, two men debate the
proper object of sexual desire. Was Boucher known for this
kind of "humor"???
Michael D. Sharp Assistant Professor Binghamton University
(SUNY) Department of English Binghamton, NY 13902-6000
(607) 777-2418
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