Editing Donald Serrell Thomas (section)

==Biography==
'''Donald Thomas''' was born in [[Weston-super-Mare]], [[Somerset]] on 18 July 1934.<ref>The Balliol College Register. Fifth edition, 1930-1980. Edited by John Jones and Sally Viney (1983), p. 294.</ref> He was educated at [[Queen's College, Taunton]], before completing his [[National service|National Service]] in the [[Royal Air Force]] (1953–1955) and then going up to [[Balliol College]], [[Oxford University|Oxford]] (1955–1958).<ref>The Balliol College Register. Fifth edition, 1930–1980. Edited by John Jones and Sally Viney (1983), p. 294.</ref> He held a personal chair as [[Professor Emeritus]] of English Literature at [[Cardiff University]].<ref name="Donald Thomas at A.M. Heath">[http://www.amheath.com/authors/author.html?_a=author.show&id=236 Donald Thomas at A.M. Heath] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090104154656/http://www.amheath.com/authors/author.html?_a=author.show&id=236 |date=4 January 2009 }}. Accessed 9 February 2008</ref><ref>[http://www.cf.ac.uk/encap/staff.html Academic Staff, Cardiff School of English, Communication, and Philosophy]. Accessed 9 February 2008 {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070907230343/http://www.cf.ac.uk/encap/staff.html |date=7 September 2007 }}</ref>

===Early works===
Thomas's earliest works seem to have been in the area of legal and historical fact, notably revised texts of [[Thomas Bayly Howell]]'s collection of state trials, originally collected at the behest of [[William Cobbett]] and published between 1809 and 1826.<ref>[http://worldcat.org/oclc/3489049?tab=details WorldCat on ''State Trials'']. Accessed 10 February 2008</ref> Among his earliest forays into the world of fiction was ''Sergeant Verity and the Cracksman'', 1974, published under the pseudonym '''Francis Selwyn'''. By the early 1980s, however, he had largely shed the Selwyn pseudonym (returning to it briefly in the late 1980s for some non-fiction works, and once in 2000, for another "Verity" novel), and began writing under his own name, Donald (S.) Thomas, switching from academic study and biography to Sherlockiana and crime fiction, all underpinned with his deep knowledge of the times and cultures of which he writes.{{Citation needed|date=February 2010}}

===Biographies and fact===
He wrote a number of books, mostly novels, on a variety of subjects predominantly set in Victorian England. He also wrote a small number of non-fiction works dealing with similar subjects/settings, among them a study of the Victorian underworld, and biographies of [[Robert Browning]], the [[Marquis de Sade]], [[Henry Fielding]], and [[Lewis Carroll]].

His 1978 (rev. ed. 2001) biography of Admiral [[Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald]] highlights the characteristics of that individual which served in large part as inspiration both for [[C. S. Forester]]'s [[Horatio Hornblower]], and for [[Patrick O'Brian]]'s [[Jack Aubrey]]. In 1994, his ''Hanged in Error?'' provided an overview/investigation as to the likely guilt of seven individuals all hanged in the UK before its abolition as a means of [[Capital punishment in the United Kingdom|capital punishment]] in 1965. The book dealt with the cases of [[Timothy Evans]], John Williams (alias George MacKay, hanged in 1913 for the fatal shooting of Inspector Arthur Walls in Eastbourne during a burglary attempt), [[Edith Thompson]], [http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Society-and-Culture/People-and-Places/Question113316.html Robert Hoolhouse], [[Neville Heath]], Charles Jenkins (hanged in 1947 together with Christopher Geraghty for fatally shooting Alec de Antiquis following a botched London jewel robbery), and [[James Hanratty]]. (N.B. This is not the same as the similarly titled 1961 book ''Hanged in Error'' by [[Leslie Hale]], which contains a different set of case histories.)

In academic circles, he is especially well known for his studies of the criminal underworld of London from Victorian times, through World War II to the [[Kray twins]]. He wrote seven biographies and a handful of other biographical studies, as well as fictionalised biographies of individuals such as [[Bonnie Prince Charlie]]. His biography of [[Lewis Carroll]] is recommended by ''Representative Poetry Online'', and his other biographical works can be found on many academic reading lists.<ref>[http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poet/57.html Lewis Carroll at ''Representative Poetry Online''] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080218081547/http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poet/57.html |date=18 February 2008 }}. Accessed 9 February 2008</ref>

He edited volumes of [[Everyman's Library]] on poets ranging from [[John Dryden]] to the Post-Romantics, and also offered a translation of Michel Millot and Jean L'Ange's bawdy 17th century novel ''L'École des filles'', which is described as "both an uninhibited manual of sexual technique and an erotic masterpiece of the first order" on its back cover.

===Fiction===
In fiction terms, he is perhaps best known for his more recent works, in particular a series of [[Sherlock Holmes]] pastiches, beginning with 1997's ''The Secret Cases of Sherlock Holmes''. He has also written a number of other titles, and three series featuring the main characters of:<br />
:''Alfred Swain'', an inspector of Scotland Yard.
:''Sonny Tarrant'', a "gangland capo",<ref>[http://www.xs4all.nl/~embden11/Engels6/thomasd.htm Donald Thomas Bibliography]. Accessed 9 February 2008</ref> and
:''Sgt. William Clarence Verity'', a "Sergeant in Scotland Yard's 'Private Clothes Detail'" who investigates the Victorian criminal underground of London, c.1850.<ref>[http://www.crimethrutime.com/library/pages/s.htm#selwyn Francis Selwyn at ''Crime Thru Time'']. Accessed 9 February 2008 {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071211171916/http://www.crimethrutime.com/library/pages/s.htm#selwyn |date=11 December 2007 }}</ref>
(Verity was created under the pseudonym Francis Selwyn.) His other novels include ''The Raising of Lizzie Meek'', "based on the scandals surrounding the Victorian miracle-worker [[Joseph Leycester Lyne|Father Ignatius of Capel-y-ffin]]".<ref name="Donald Thomas at A.M. Heath"/> Thomas is represented by Bill Hamilton of A.M. Heath & Company, Ltd.<ref>[http://www.amheath.com/agents/agent.html?_a=agent.show&id=41 Bill Hamilton of A.M. Heath] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080317012918/http://www.amheath.com/agents/agent.html?_a=agent.show&id=41 |date=17 March 2008 }}. Accessed 9 February 2008</ref>

===Later life and death===
Having retired from Cardiff University, he remained affiliated there, as an Associate Research Professor in the School of English, Communication and Philosophy.<ref name="caerdydd.ac.uk">[http://www.caerdydd.ac.uk/news/articles/wartime-crime-on-the-home-front.html News Centre: "War-time crime on the home front" Review of ''An Underworld at War'']{{dead link|date=December 2016 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}. Accessed 9 February 2008</ref> In 2005, as Personal Chair in the School of English, Communication and Philosophy at Cardiff University, he "donated a selection of his personal archive of research papers, used in writing his series of acclaimed books on the Underworld in Victorian and World War II eras to the University [of Cardiff]'s Special Collections and Archives."<ref>[http://www.caerdydd.ac.uk/news/articles/villains-paradise.html News Centre: "Villain's Paradise" review]{{dead link|date=December 2016 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}. Accessed 9 February 2008</ref>

Some of his last works included a study on censorship in modern Britain, reviewed as "provocative, timely and disturbing" by [[Iain Finlayson]] in ''[[The Times]]''.<ref>{{cite news | author=Iain Finlayson| author-link=Iain Finlayson | title=Freedom's Frontier: Censorship in Modern Britain  | date=25 August 2007 | work=The Times | url=http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/non-fiction/article2320727.ece| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110517081554/http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/non-fiction/article2320727.ece| url-status=dead| archive-date=17 May 2011|access-date = 9 February 2008  | location=London}}</ref>

Thomas died on 20 January 2022, at the age of 87.<ref>{{cite news |title=Professor Donald Thomas, prolific biographer, scholar of true crime and author of mystery novels – obituary |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2022/03/10/professor-donald-thomas-prolific-biographer-scholar-true-crime/ |access-date=11 March 2022 |publisher=The Telegraph |date=10 March 2022}}</ref>