# Charles Duff

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For the cricketer, see [Charles Duff (cricketer)](/source/Charles_Duff_(cricketer)).

**Charles Duff** (7 April 1894 – 15 October 1966) was a Northern Irish writer of books on [language learning](/source/Language_acquisition). He also wrote a popular book on [hanging](/source/Hanging) and other means of execution.[1]

## Early life

Duff was born in [Enniskillen](/source/Enniskillen), [County Fermanagh](/source/County_Fermanagh), Ireland, and attended [Portora Royal School](/source/Portora_Royal_School) (now [Enniskillen Royal Grammar School](/source/Enniskillen_Royal_Grammar_School)), which is located in the town.

## Career

Duff served as an officer in the British [Merchant Navy](/source/Merchant_Navy_(United_Kingdom)) in [World War I](/source/World_War_I) and then in the intelligence division of the [Foreign Office](/source/Foreign,_Commonwealth_and_Development_Office) and [Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service](/source/Her_Majesty's_Diplomatic_Service). He resigned from the Foreign Office in the 1930s, claiming it was solidly supportive of [fascism in Spain](/source/Fascism_in_Spain) and ready to back a similar system [in Britain](/source/British_Fascism).[2]

## Languages

After he retired, Duff taught linguistics and languages in London and [Singapore](/source/Singapore), while writing travel guides, histories, satires, and a series of text books for the active self-learner. He was fluent in seven languages. His many translations included works by [Francisco de Quevedo](/source/Francisco_de_Quevedo), [Émile Zola](/source/%C3%89mile_Zola), [B. Traven](/source/B._Traven), [Maxim Gorky](/source/Maxim_Gorky), and [Arnold Zweig](/source/Arnold_Zweig).[1]

Duff's best known book is *A Handbook of Hanging*. This also covers electrocution, decapitations, gassings, innocent men executed and botched executions. It has been reissued intermittently in the UK, for instance in 1948, 1953, 1954,[3] 1974, etc., and in the United States in 1999, with an introduction by [Christopher Hitchens](/source/Christopher_Hitchens).[4]

Duff's book *James Joyce and the Plain Reader* (1932) is an introduction [James Joyce](/source/James_Joyce)'s major works that seeks to guide "the plain reader" through the author's oeuvre.[5] Duff both situates Joyce within a long literary tradition and emphasises his originality.[6] In describing Joyce, Duff draws on [ethnic stereotypes](/source/Ethnic_stereotypes), describing Irish people as motivated by "a restless and often fantastic imagination".[7] Joyce himself owned a copy of Duff's book,[7] and the literary scholar Jean-Michel Rabaté argues that, when Joyce came to complete *[Finnegans Wake](/source/Finnegans_Wake)* (1939), he was pleased with Duff's book and incorporated elements of Duff's thought into his work, including the vindication of the rights of the "plain reader".[8] George Orwell, in a 1933 letter to Eleanor Jacques, described *James Joyce and the Plain Reader* as "weak trash, which would give the impression that J[oyce] was a writer on the [\[Hugh\] Walpole](/source/Hugh_Walpole)—[\[J. B.\] Priestley](/source/J._B._Priestley) level."[9]

## Notes

1. Introduction to *A Handbook on Hanging* [Retrieved 1 March 2016.](http://www.nybooks.com/media/doc/2010/02/09/handbook-hanging-introduction.pdf)

1. Meltzer, Albert (1996). [*I Couldn't Paint Golden Angels*](http://www.spunk.org/texts/writers/meltzer/sp001591/angels2.html). AK Press.

1. *A New Handbook of Hanging* (London: Melrose, 1954). Dates from [British Library](/source/British_Library) Main Catalogue.

1. New York: New York Review of Books, 1999.

1. Rabaté, Jean-Michael (2002). "Modernism and 'the plain reader's rights': Duff–Riding–Graves re-reading Joyce". *European Joyce Studies*. **14**: 33. [JSTOR 44871156](https://www.jstor.org/stable/44871156)

1. Rabaté 2002, pp. 34–5.

1. Nash, John (2006). [*James Joyce and the Act of Reception: Reading, Ireland, Modernism*](https://books.google.com/books?id=1sDTcvCuABAC). Cambridge University Press. p. 117. ISBN 9781139460835.

1. Rabaté 2002, p. 37.

1. Orwell, George (1968 [1933]). "Letter to Eleanor Jacques". *The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Volume 1: An Age Like This 1920–1940*. Penguin. p. 141.

## External links

- [Information on Duff at LanguageHat.com](http://www.languagehat.com/archives/002661.php)
- [Library Thing Web site, page on Charles Duff books](http://www.librarything.com/author/duffcharles)

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Charles Duff](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Duff) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Duff?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.