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When Angus Wilson reviewed The Decoding of 'Edwin Drood' in The New York Times on 1 March 1981 he wrote of the author Charles Forsyte's 'brilliant analysis of the Drood problems'. That brilliantly analytical approach belonged, under many different circumstances, to the life and literary activities of Gordon Philo, who used the pseudonym Charles Forsyte for many of his writings, some of them co-authored with his wife, who died in 1986. Gordon's second forename was Charles and his wife's maiden name was Galsworthy: hence the pseudonym. Gordon Philo was born on 8 January 1920 and died on 24 January 2009, aged 89.
Gordon's interest in Dickens and particularly in that tantalisingly incomplete final novel made him a very welcome addition to any conference or speakers' programme where he spoke clearly...