You Mean the First Detective Wasn’t C. Auguste Dupin?
[from the stabenow.com vaults, July 11, 2011]
Fascinating story about the first detective novel, The Notting Hill Murders, whose existence was ferreted out by author Paul Collins (The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City and Sparked the Tabloid Wars, June 2011). The novel itself sounds pretty darn good, too, a story of wife murder that could star Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman. You know, if they were still alive.
Great interview of Collins by Scott Simon on NPR here, too.
According to Collins, the British Library has digitized The Notting Hill Mystery for download but I couldn’t find a link to it. Anybody?
11:27am update — This post hasn’t been up a day and Caton at Gere Donovan Press sends me a link to an online PDF copy of The Notting Hill Murders. Enjoy!
Book Review Monday Chatter C. Auguste Dupin Edgar Allen Poe Paul Collins The Notting Hill Murders
This is really cool. I have heard (read about) little teasing references to the Notting Hill Mystery- this is a lot more information than I had. Thanks so much!
Kelly, see link above. I heart the Internet!
The good folks at Project Gutenberg have subsequently cleaned up the text and released The Notting Hill Mystery in ePub and Kindle formats. Much better than the Archive.org edition linked to above.
Download it here.