Albert Campion

Albert Campion is a fictional character in a series of detective novels and short stories by Margery Allingham. He first appeared as a supporting character in The Crime at Black Dudley (1929), an adventure story involving a ring of criminals, and would go on to feature in another 18 novels and over 20 short stories. Supposedly created as a parody of Dorothy L. Sayers' detective Lord Peter Wimsey, Campion established his own identity, and matured and developed as the series progressed. After Allingham's death her husband Philip Youngman Carter completed her last Campion book and wrote two more before his own death. Fictional biography Albert Campion is a pseudonym used by a man who was born in 1900 into a prominent British aristocratic family. Early novels hint that he was part of the Royal Family but this suggestion is dropped in later works. However, it is hinted at again in Cargo of Eagles, Allingham's last novel. He was educated at Rugby School and the (fictitious) St. Ignatius' College, Cambridge (according to a mini-biography included in Sweet Danger; this is also hinted at in Police at the Funeral). Ingenious, resourceful and well-educated, in his 20s he assumed the name Campion and began a life as an adventurer and detective. Characteristics Campion is thin, blond, wears horn-rimmed glasses, and is often described as affable, inoffensive and bland, with a deceptively blank and unintelligent expression. He sometimes engages in silly stunts, slapstick humor, and carries a realistic-looking water pistol instead of a firearm. He is, nonetheless, a man of authority and action, and considers himself to be a helpful and comforting 'Uncle Albert' to friends and those in need. In some stories, he lives in a flat above a police station at Number 17A, Bottle Street in Piccadilly, London. In the early stories he has a pet jackdaw called Autolycus.