The Oxford Book of Victorian Detective Stories

by Cox, Michael

• ISBN13: 9780192804488
• ISBN10: 0192804480
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-04-24
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The Victorian era saw the first great flowering of the detective story. Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Arthur Conan Doyle, J.S. Le Fanu, and a host of others pioneered a genre of fiction that remains among the most popular today. Now, in Victorian Tales of Mystery and Detection , Michael Cox provides a sampling of the finest detective stories written from the 1840s to the early twentieth century. Here readers will find tales displaying a vast array of detectives and villains--and a multitude of murder methods and motives--all chronologically arranged so that readers can follow the genre as it develops over time. For instance, in Conan Doyle's "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" we see an example of the many Sherlock Holmes escapades that popularized and came to typify the detective story for the Victorian public. And in the progression of the stories, we witness the evolution of the investigator from Poe's brilliant and eccentric Chevalier C. August Dupin, to Doyle's scientific Sherlock Holmes, into Robert Barr's cavalier Valmont (a possible model for Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot). Including well-known stories by famous authors, as well as little known gems reprinted, this book offers hours of enjoyment and escape for all lovers of crime fiction.

Author Biography

Michael Cox is Senior Commissioning Editor, Reference Books, at OUP and is currently compiling The Oxford Chronology of English Literature on a freelance basis. His previous books include A Dictionary of Writers and Their Works, Victorian Ghost Stories (with R. A. Gilbert), The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories, and The Oxford Book of Twentieth-Century Ghost Stories.

Table of Contents

Introduction	ix
The Purloined Letter (1845)	1	(17)
Edgar Allan Poe
The Murdered Cousin (1851)	18	(30)
J. S. Le Fanu
Hunted Down (1859)	48	(21)
Charles Dickens
Levison's Victim (1870)	69	(15)
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
The Mystery at Number Seven (1877)	84	(40)
Mrs Henry Wood
The Going Out of Alessandro Pozzone (1878)	124	(17)
Richard Dowling
Who Killed Zebedee? (1881)	141	(20)
Wilkie Collins
A Circumstantial Puzzle (1889)	161	(25)
R. E. Francillon
The Mystery of Essex Stairs (1891)	186	(9)
Sir Gilbert Campbell
The Adventure of the Blue Carbunde (1892)	195	(19)
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Great Ruby Robbery (1892)	214	(19)
Grant Allen
The Sapient Monkey (1892)	233	(8)
Headon Hill
Cheating the Gallows (1893)	241	(13)
Israel Zangwill
Drawn Daggers (1893)	254	(20)
C. L. Pirkis
The Greenstone God and the Stockbroker (1894)	274	(15)
Fergus Home
The Arrest of Captain Vandaleur (1894)	289	(14)
L. T. Meade
Robert Eustace
The Accusing Shadom (1894)	303	(39)
Harry Blyth
The Ivy Cottage Mystery (1895)	342	(23)
Arthur Morrison
The Azteck Opal (1895)	365	(12)
Rodrigues Ottolengui
The Long Arm (1895)	377	(29)
Mary E. Wilkins
The Case of Euphemia Raphash (1895)	406	(14)
M. P. Shiel
The Tin Box (1896)	420	(17)
Herbert Keen
Murder by Proxy (1897)	437	(20)
M. McDonnell Bodkin
The Duchess of Wiltshire's Diamonds (1897)	457	(23)
Guy Boothby
The Story of The Spaniards, Hammersmith (1898)	480	(13)
E. Heron
H. Heron
The Lost Special (1898)	493	(15)
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Banknote Forger (1899)	508	(10)
C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
A Warning in Red (1899)	518	(10)
Victor L. Whitechurch
E. Conway
The Fenchurch Street Mystery (1901)	528	(15)
Baroness Orczy
The Green Spider (1904)	543	(12)
Sax Rohmer
The Clue of the Silver Spoons (1904)	555	(18)
Robert Barr
Sources	573	(3)
Select Bibliography	576