In 1863, Charles Warren Adams published “The Notting Hill Mystery.” The book, which started as a year-long magazine serial, became the world’s first detective novel. What’s amazing is that after spawning a genre of thousands, “Notting Hill” is still a good read 150 years later
The sleuth, Ralph Henderson, is an insurance investigator, of all things, and he painstakingly puts together a series of clues that would impress today’s literary detectives. There are reports, letters, diary entries, depositions, scraps of paper, chemist reports and other documents presented in such a meticulous manner that the reader is convinced that not only are crimes committed but how.
We know early on that the villain is Baron R**, a mesmerist, or hypnotist. The evil baron discovers that the patient he is treating is really the twin sister of his assistant, Rosalie, who vanished when she was a toddler. He also realizes that if the sister and her husband were to die, Rosalie would inherit a fortune. Even better, if Rosalie died after the other two, the inheritance would go to her husband. The baron quickly marries Rosalie, then sets out with murderous intent. The mystery is not whodunit but how the evildoer is brought to light.
By coincidence, the series was illustrated by George du Maurier, who later wrote the famous novel “Trilby,” which also centers on hypnotism.
Some of the devices in “The Notting Hill Mystery” — mesmerism, for instance, and a kidnapping band of gypsies — would raises eyebrows among today’s crime fans. But on the whole, the mystery that started them all is as masterful as anything it inspired.
FICTION: CRIME
CRIME
The Notting Hill Mystery
by Charles Warren Adams (University of Chicago Press)
