Originally published in Mystery Readers Journal, volume 39, number 2, Summer 2023
Doris Amy Elles Dillon Turnbull (1878-1961) wrote under the name Patricia Wentworth. Her first book about Miss Maud Silver, a former governess turned successful private investigator, was published in 1928. While Turnbull wrote some nonseries books and a few about Scotland Yard Inspector Ernest Lamb, originally introduced as a foil to Miss Silver, her unlikely PI was her most enduring creation.
Miss Silver consults with the upper class of English society. Each happy client refers friends and relatives to her and she has no need to advertise. She is often compared to Miss Marple, with good reason. However, Miss Silver always had to earn a living, unlike Miss Marple, and she is well aware that her skills are valuable. She is mostly accepted and consulted by Scotland Yard, notably by Frank Abbott, who rises through the ranks during the series partly by capitalizing on Miss Silver’s ability. His relationship with Miss Silver mirrors Miss Marple’s relationship with Dermot Craddock of Scotland Yard.
Typical of series characters at the time, Miss Silver changed little if at all over the course of her 32 books. Her hair is in an unfashionable bun, her skirts are lamentably long, and the purchase of new apparel was rare enough to require careful consideration. She had a quote from Tennyson to offer on nearly every occasion. And she was an indefatigable knitter. She knit in the continental fashion, which involves holding the needles and yarn low in the lap. Apparently this method eliminates the dreaded dropped stitch.
Miss Silver knits her way through 32 cases, often using her handiwork to establish rapport with potential witnesses and to disarm suspects. In some books she is a knitting machine, and in others her needlecraft is barely mentioned, but every book has at least one knitting scene. She sometimes demonstrates new stitches, as in The Key and The Chinese Shawl, to potential witnesses, and she helps indifferent knitters improve. In Out of the Past, she coached Esther Field, who was knitting shawls as Christmas gifts. She was talented enough to create new patterns.
Miss Silver could also crochet. She used it to provide a finishing touch along the edges of various pieces.
As time went on and she closed case after case, Miss Silver made friends of her former clients. By the fourth book in the series we learn that she also has a number of nieces and nephews who benefit from her skill. Between her family and her clients, there was a never-ending need for baby clothes and shawls and jumpers. Blue and pink were preferred for baby articles, regardless of gender; dark grey seems to be the usual color for schoolboy stockings. In contrast were her knitting bags, which her niece Ethel provided. All of them were colorful, if not downright garish. War rationing played havoc with her acquisition of wool, as the books written in the 1940s demonstrate. The gift of pre-war wool in Pilgrim’s Rest made her ecstatic. Details fade toward the end of the series but her knitting never stops. Herewith is a catalog of Miss Silver’s needlework pieces, their color, and their recipients.
| Title | Year of First Publication | Alternate Title | Item | Color | Notes |
| Grey Mask | 1928 | Stockings | Dark grey | ||
| Baby bootees | White | ||||
| Baby coat | Pale blue | ||||
| The Case Is Closed | 1937 | Baby bootees | White | ||
| Baby coat | Pale blue | ||||
| Lonesome Road | 1939 | Baby coat | Pale pink | For the baby of Henry and Hilary Cunningham, clients in The Case Is Closed | |
| Shawl | Pale blue | For Hilary Cunningham | |||
| In the Balance | 1941 | Danger Point (1942) | 3 pairs of baby socks and a coat | Produced while on vacation with her niece Ethel for Ethel’s baby | |
| Socks | Grey | For niece Ethel’s oldest son | |||
| Sweater | Blue | For niece Ethel, an elaborate original pattern designed by Miss Silver | |||
| A couple of rows of a new piece, too small to identify | Pink | ||||
| The Chinese Shawl | 1943 | Baby’s vest | Pink | For niece Milly Rogers’ new baby, Miss Silver found the wool in Ledlington. | |
| Baby bootees | Pale blue | Presumably for Milly’s baby, they have an intricate pattern. | |||
| Baby bootees | Pink | Presumably for Milly’s baby, the same pattern as the blue ones. | |||
| Baby jacket | Pale blue | Presumably for Milly’s baby | |||
| Shawl | Mentioned is a shawl that Miss Silver made for her niece Letty’s second child but she did not consider the new stitch a success and kept the shawl for her own use. | ||||
| Miss Silver Deals with Death | 1943 | Miss Silver Intervenes (1944) | Air Force socks | Blue | For youngest nephew Alfred who had just joined the Air Force |
| Jumper | Blue | For niece Ethel, Miss Silver wasn’t sure she would have enough coupons to buy wool for both the jumper and the baby bootees. | |||
| Baby bootees | Blue | For Lisle Jerningham, client from In the Balance | |||
| The Clock Strikes Twelve | 1944 | Jersey and leggings | Dark grey | For Roger, Ethel’s third son; Ethel provided two coupons toward the wool but Miss Silver had to use coupons intended for her own wardrobe to acquire enough for the outfit. The choice of colors was limited to bright green, magenta, and dark grey, none of which she considered appropriate for a child of three. | |
| The Key | 1944 | Socks | Air Force blue | Probably for nephew Alfred. Miss Silver was “waiting for the address she had asked her niece Ethel to send.” | |
| Socks | Khaki | For second cousin Ellen Brownlee’s son in the Buffs The Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment) was a line infantry regiment of the British Army, traditionally raised in the county of Kent. It dates back to 1572, one of the oldest regiments in the British Army. | |||
| She Came Back | 1945 | The Traveller Returns (1948) | Socks | Dark grey | For Johnny Burkett, niece Ethel Burkett’s son Miss Silver promised Ethel three pairs for Johnny before Christmas. She notes that she bought a great deal of dark grey wool before rationing was established, allowing her to make socks for Johnny, Derek, and Roger, Ethel’s sons. |
| Socks | Dark grey | For Roger | |||
| Pilgrim’s Rest | 1946 | Dark Threat (1948) | Jumper | Blue | For niece Ethel Burkett’s birthday, made of pre-war wool and using a new stitch |
| Socks | Dark grey | For niece Ethel’s oldest son | |||
| Socks | Dark grey | For niece Ethel’s son Roger | |||
| Latter End | 1947 | Socks | Dark grey | For niece Ethel’s son Derek | |
| Wicked Uncle | 1947 | The Spotlight (1949) | Baby vests | Blush pink | For baby of niece Ethel’s older brother and his wife Dorothy. This nephew remains unnamed until one of the last books, when his name is given as Jim. |
| Eternity Ring | 1948 | Baby coat | Miss Silver knits a number of these baby coats but there’s no mention of buttons for them. Not clear to me how they were fastened. | ||
| Baby coat | Pale blue | ||||
| Baby coat | Shell pink | ||||
| The Case of William Smith | 1948 | Baby leggings | Pale blue | After completing three pairs of socks for Johnny, Derek and Roger, Miss Silver is outfitting niece Ethel’s daughter Josephine. | |
| Baby coats (2) | Pale blue | For Josephine | |||
| Cardigan | Deep cherry red | For niece Ethel Burkett | |||
| Miss Silver Comes to Stay | 1949 | Coat and knickers | Pale blue | For niece Ethel’s daughter Josephine | |
| The Catherine Wheel | 1949 | Dress | Bright china blue | For niece Ethel’s daughter Josephine | |
| Through the Wall | 1950 | Stockings | Grey | For niece Ethel Burkett’s second son Derek | |
| The Brading Collection | 1950 | Mr. Brading’s Collection (1987) | Striped scarf | Lemon, dark blue, grey | The leftover yarn from previous projects became a scarf for niece Ethel Burkett |
| Baby vests (3) | Pale pink | For second baby of niece Ethel’s older brother and his wife Dorothy | |||
| The Ivory Dagger | 1950 | Vests | Pale pink | For niece Ethel’s 3-year-old daughter Josephine, finished two and started a third. | |
| Anna, Where Are You? | 1951 | Death at Deep End (1963) | Cardigan | Deep blue | For niece Ethel Burkett |
| Baby bootees | Stopped work on the cardigan to pull together the bootees | ||||
| Socks | For Maurice Craddock, son of a family Miss Silver was visiting. | ||||
| Baby coat | Pale blue | For anticipated third baby of niece Ethel’s older brother and his wife Dorothy Usually Miss Silver finishes one piece before she starts another but not in this book. | |||
| The Watersplash | 1951 | Baby vests | Pink | For the baby of Charles Forrest and Stacy Mainwaring, clients from The Brading Collection Tried to match some pre-war blue wool for a dress for Josephine with no success. | |
| Ladies’ Bane | 1952 | Baby bootees | White | ||
| Stockings | Grey | For niece Ethel’s second son Derek Miss Silver has finished three pairs for the oldest son Johnny. When she finishes three pairs for Derek, she will knit three pairs for Roger and then start a dress for Josephine. | |||
| Out of the Past | 1953 | Baby coat | Blush rose | For nephew Jim and his wife Dorothy’s anticipated third baby. Miss Silver was knitting for this baby in Anna, Where Are You?, published in 1951. Suspect this book was written about the same time, as Wentworth usually kept family timelines straight. | |
| Bootees | |||||
| Vanishing Point | 1953 | Twin set | Cherry red | For niece Ethel’s daughter Josephine’ sixth birthday | |
| Hood and scarf | |||||
| Leggings | |||||
| The Silent Pool | 1953 | Baby coat | White | Jim and Dorothy’s third baby turned out to be twins. The unexpected fourth baby needed a complete layette in addition to the bootees and coats already sent. | |
| Bootees | |||||
| Shawl | |||||
| The Benevent Treasure | 1954 | Stockings | Grey | For niece Ethel Burkett’s son Roger | |
| Jumper | Blue | For niece Ethel Burkett, a new pattern using exceptionally soft wool | |||
| The Listening Eye | 1955 | Shawl | Pale blue | For Dorinda Leigh’s third baby, client in Wicked Uncle | |
| Bootees | Pale blue | ||||
| The Gazebo | 1955 | The Summerhouse (1967) | Vests | Pink | For niece by marriage Dorothy Silvers’ 2-year old Tina |
| Twin set | Deep smokey violet | For Ethel Burkett’s Christmas present; Ethel has gained weight and Miss Silver thinks the color will be slimming. | |||
| Poison in the Pen | 1955 | Jumper, part of a twin set | Pale blue | For Josephine’s 7th birthday. Miss Silver crocheted a tricot edging on both the jumper and the cardigan. | |
| Cardigan | Rich red | For Ethel Burkett’s Christmas gift. Miss Silver found the wool at Ashley’s and ran into Lisle Jerningham, client from In the Balance, there. | |||
| The Fingerprint | 1956 | Shawl | white | For Valentine Leigh’s baby. Valentine Grey and Jason Leigh marry at the end of Poison in the Pen. | |
| The Alington Inheritance | 1958 | Baby’s vest | Pale pink | This is the book with the least discussion of needlework. | |
| The Girl in the Cellar | 1961 | Shawl | Pale pink | ||
| Football sweater | For Ethel Burkett’s oldest son |