Shakespeare Reference in Till Death Do Us Part

John Dickson Carr’s mystery novel Till Death Do Us Part contains a reference to Hamlet. John Dickson Carr has his character Dr. Fell say, “It was the perfect picture – ahem – a dramatist hoist with his own petard” (p. 71). That is a reference to Hamlet’s line “For ‘tis the sport to have the engineer/Hoist with his own petard” from Act III.

Till Death Do Us Part was published in 1944. The edition I read was the second printing of the New Bantam Edition, published in 1965.