Marjorie Douie

Marjorie Douie is a little-known novelist remembered today for The Pointing Man: A Burmese Mystery, first published in 1920. Project Gutenberg’s catalog lists her as "Marjorie, 1888?-1946," which suggests that even basic details of her life are uncertain.

What can be confirmed is the distinctive flavor of her best-known book. The Pointing Man is set in Burma and builds its mystery through place as much as plot, using streets, shops, and colonial tensions to create a strong atmosphere. That combination of crime story and sharply drawn setting is the main reason her work continues to attract curious modern readers.

Because so little reliable biographical information is easy to verify, Douie remains something of a literary ghost. For many readers, that mystery only adds to the appeal: she is an author known less through public fame than through one memorable novel that has managed to endure.