Detective Fiction from Literary Giants, 1853–1863
Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
“Thousands of English readers first became interested in detectives, amateur or professional, through seeing them at work in Bleak House, The Woman in White, The Moonstone, or The Mystery of Edwin Drood, and these two novelists, the most widely-read fiction writers of their day . . . exerted a remarkable influence upon the development of the detective novel” (A. E. Murch, 1958). According to detective fiction historian Julian Symons, the early Victorian era was violent, with thousands of murders committed annually. In London, New York, and other large cities, whole neighborhoods were practically in anarchy, with little or no police presence. Dickens was well aware of the role, often inadequate, of the police forces – such as they were. Collins also wrote detective-related short stories before his long novels. The two literary giants were close friends, related by marriage, and occasional collaborators.
Charles Dickens. Bleak House. London: Bradbury & Evans, 1853.
In Bleak House, Dickens constructed an important part of the plot in the form of a detective story that includes a murder. An innocent suspect is arrested on circumstantial evidence, but the true murderer is identified and captured by “Inspector Bucket of the Detective [Branch],” in whom Dickens created the first professional detective hero in English fiction. Dickens based Inspector Bucket on one Inspector Field, with whom he was acquainted. The depiction of Inspector Bucket, by illustrator H. K. Browne, is probably the first image of an English detective in history. A Haycraft-Queen selection.
Charles Dickens. Hunted Down: A Story [with] The Uncommercial Traveler, a Series of Occasional Papers. Leipzig: Bernard Tauchnitz, 1860.
Although published in Germany, this is the first edition in book form of Dickens’s second excursion into detective fiction. “Hunted Down,” actually a short story, is likely based on the true tale of Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, who poisoned his sister-in-law, mother-in-law, uncle, and a friend, for life insurance money. Wainewright talked to Dickens while in Newgate Prison. Queen’s Quorum no. 4.
Wilkie Collins. The Woman in White. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1860.
For many years, this first American edition was thought to have preceded the British triple-decker edition by several weeks, but more recent research puts the release dates much closer together. Serialization of The Woman in White began in London and New York on the same day. John Carter wrote, “If Poe created the short detective story, Wilkie Collins is the undisputed father of the full-length variety.” Based on a French case, the novel was a phenomenal success in both England and America. Collins’s tombstone reads, “Author of The Woman in White and other works of fiction.” The book’s amateur detective heroes are Walter Hartwright, a young drawing master, and Marian Halcombe, “the real heroine of the book” (Murch, 1958). A Haycraft-Queen selection.
Wilkie Collins. The Moonstone. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1868.
The first American edition of The Moonstone, an even more sensational success than The Woman in White and the apex of Collins’s career. Four separate editions were published in the same time frame in the United States alone. Collins based his creation Sergeant Cuff on a true-life Scotland Yard Inspector, Jonathan Whicher, and was said to have brought to the novel “a breath of the actual.” A Haycraft-Queen selection.