April 23, 2015

World Book Day, every 23rd of April,  is an occasion to celebrate, for the staff here at the Cat Lover's Almanac, those authors whose biographical details are obscure. Today we spotlight Jane E. Horning. She was born in 1942, in California, we read, and worked as a librarian. She was reported living in northern California, but recent news is missing.

Jane Horning authored a book: The Mystery Lovers Book of Quotations (1988). The credit specifies she edited and compiled this collection of quotes from mystery stories, which runs to over 1300 pages. The range of authors whose work was not just read, but studied, and portions typed out, and filed, and then collated, retyped, and prepared for press, is impressive. We note just a few writers included in her resource:

Anthony Berkeley
Earl Derr Biggers
Agatha Christie
Howard Engle
Loren Estleman
Helen Eustis
Matthew Head
Ross Spencer
Frank Stockton

We picture the editor spending years preparing for this volume. The idea is quite innovative. And the publication year, 1988, was just before the world of researchers, writers, editors, quite changed. I  have used her work for paragraphs here in this blog. The authors I list above have another singularity---- the selections for these mystery novelists, picked by Horning for inclusion in her reference work ---- all mention a cat. I of course could determine this quickly, using contemporary digital resources. Copy it quickly with a few key strokes. And file it on line, til I meed it.  My labor is nothing compared to Horning's.  Soon perhaps no one will remember what went into original research. 

Jane Horning, we are so glad you researched and published The Mystery Lovers Book of Quotations. We hope you know about this post.