| Inspector Morse |
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Detective Chief Inspector Endeavour Morse is a Fictional Character , who features in a series of thirteen Detective Novel s by British Author Colin Dexter , though he is better known for the 33 episode TV series produced by Central Independent Television from 1987–2000, in which he was portrayed by John Thaw . Morse is a senior CID (Criminal Investigation Department) officer with the Thames Valley Police in Oxford , England. NOVELS The Inspector Morse novels have been successful in both book and television serial form. The stories are set primarily in Oxford. With a Vintage Mark 2 Jaguar car (originally a Lancia ), a thirst for Beer , intellectual snobbery and penchant for Wagner , Morse presents a likeable person despite his sullen temperament. Morse dislikes spelling errors and grammatical mistakes, demonstrated by the fact that in every personal or private document written to him, he manages to point out at least one spelling mistake. His approach to crime-solving, he frequently asserts, is deductive and one of his key tenets is that 'the last person to see the victim alive was the murderer'. Dexter is a fan of . Morse's first name, "Endeavour", was kept a secret until the end of ''Death is Now My Neighbour'' (traditionally Morse claimed that he should be called 'Morse' or jokingly that his first name was 'Inspector'). In the series it is noted that his reticence about his "Christian" name led to a public school nickname of "Pagan". The origin of his name is the vessel HM Bark Endeavour , as Morse's mother was a Quaker (Quakers have a tradition of "virtue names") and his father was a fan of Captain James Cook . Morse is an interesting and complex character to assess from a social and political viewpoint. In sharp juxtaposition to the Welsh (altered to northern in the TV series) working class background of his assistant, Lewis (named for another rival clue-writer, Mrs. B. Lewis), Morse is ostensibly the embodiment of white, male, upper-middle-class Englishness, with a set of prejudices and assumptions to match. He is, for example, frequently portrayed in the act of patronising women characters to the extent that some feminist critics have argued that Morse is a . Morse's relationships with authority, the establishment, bastions of power and the status quo are markedly ambiguous. Although details of Morse's career are deliberately kept vague, it is hinted that as a schoolboy, he won a scholarship to study at Oxford. He lost the scholarship as the result of poor academic performance, which in turn resulted from a failed love affair. Forced to leave the University, he entered the Army, and on leaving it, joined the Police. He often reflects on renowned scholars (such as A. E. Houseman ) who, like himself, failed to get academic degrees from Oxford. The titles of the books are:
Inspector Morse also appears in several stories in Dexter's short story collection, ''Morse's Greatest Mystery and Other Stories'' (1993, expanded edition 1994). Dexter killed Morse in his last book, ''The Remorseful Day''. Morse dies in a hospital bed from complications of his neglected Type 2 Diabetes . TELEVISION See Also: Inspector Morse (TV series) The Inspector Morse novels were made into an extremely successful TV Series (also called ''Inspector Morse'') for the British TV channel ITV . The series was made by Zenith Productions for Central (a company later acquired by Carlton ). The series comprises 33 two-hour episodes (100 minutes excluding commercials)—twenty more episodes than there are novels—produced between 1987 and 2000 . The final episode was adapted from the final novel. RADIO An occasional BBC Radio 4 series (for the Saturday Play) was made starring the voices of John Shrapnel as Morse and Robert Glenister as Lewis. The series was written by Guy Meredith and directed by Ned Chaillet. Episodes included: "The Wench is Dead" (28 March 1992); "Last Seen Wearing" (28 May 1994); and "The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn" (10 February 1996). FURTHER READING
SEE ALSO REFERENCES EXTERNAL LINKS
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