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The Notting Hill Mystery
Can you name the first detective novel ever published? For years, many believed it to be Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone, published in 1868. Others speculated it might be Émile Gaboriau’s first Monsieur Lecoq novel, L’Affaire Lerouge. Actually, the firstmodern detective novel predates both of these by several years—Charles Warren Adams’s The Notting Hill Mystery, originally...more
Paperback, 284 pages
Published
April 15th 2012
by British Library
(first published 1862)
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A fun read, but definitely NOT the first detective novel. "The Notting Hill Mystery" is sort of like Law & Order for the Victorian period: heavy emphasis on compiled evidence, interviews, deposition, etc. We do not know the detective at all as a person, and we do not follow in his detective work. If compiled evidence + conclusions about a crime = a detective novel, then Collins' Woman in White fits the bill and came earlier (in 1859). To me, though, a detective novel needs a detective -- eit...more
Sep 12, 2012
cindy
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
cf-crime-fiction,
indonesian
Buku yang diterbitkan tahun 1863 ini konon adalah novel detektif yang pertama di dunia. Pertama kali beredar sebagai kisah bersambung 8 seri di sebuah majalah mingguan Once a Week, dan bagian pertamanya muncul pada 29 November 1862. Nama pengarangnya - Charles Felix - sangat misterius, karena merupakan sebuah nama pena dari orang yang dirahasiakan oleh pihak penerbit. Berdasarkan penelitian akhir, disimpulkan bahwa Charles Felix adalah pseudonim dari Charles Warren Adams yang tidak lain adalah p...more
This book is undoubtably, according to new research, the first mystery novel every written. I first heard about it a few months ago in an article in the NYTimes... they finally solved the mystery of who its author is.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/boo...
As a mystery aficionado, I thought it my duty to track it down. I actually had to go to amazon.uk and get the British Library (who has been digitizing its archives) to digitally copy one from its serial publication in a magazine in the 1860s,...more
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/boo...
As a mystery aficionado, I thought it my duty to track it down. I actually had to go to amazon.uk and get the British Library (who has been digitizing its archives) to digitally copy one from its serial publication in a magazine in the 1860s,...more
heard about this in a NY Times book review in and around the time i was reading the Moonstone. I had always thought that the Moonstone was usually credited as the first mystery novel. this one claims to be earlier + a mystery in itself -- no one knew the real author. until recently. anyway, an interesting read from a historical perspective but not so great a read. some aspects of the style seem quite modern -- the entire book (virtually) is a compendium of evidence from the murder investigation....more
wah, katanya novel detektif pertama di dunia ya? Cara penulisan yang unik, mengajak pembaca untuk ikut menyelidiki. Saya merasa seakan-akan sayalah sekretaris asosiasi asuransi jiwa itu dan saya harus memutuskan apakah layak untuk mengucurkan dana asuransi yang besar itu! 0__0 keren juga... tidak terlalu mengecewakan, sama saja seperti semua cerita detektif, hanya berbeda penyampaiannya saja dan setelah matamu mulai terikat dalam jalinan kata-katanya, kita akan menjadi detektif sesungguhnya. Sun...more
This is a great story which originally had a great author mystery to go along with it. Sadly, the author has been identified (today). Paul Collins in his NYTimes article solved the mystery but the story still has intrigue as no one has ever been able to solve the mystery of how the crime was committed. What I'm not able to tell you is where to fid a copy of the mystery. I'd highly recommend The Notting Hill Mystery to mystery lovers however, if anyone knows where to access a copy of the mystery,...more
This story was first published in 1862 and 1863 as a magazine serial, giving the author's name as Charles Felix. The book caught my eye in the library because of the line under the title claiming it to be 'The First Detective Novel'. The story is told by an insurance investigator who is reporting to several companies. With each company, Baron R insured his wife's life for a considerable sum. The investigator builds a case against the baron, whom he suspects of murdering his wife.
The story-tellin...more
The story-tellin...more
Paul Collins of the New Your Times wrote 'The book is both utterly of its time and utterly ahead of it'. For me, that it is so ahead of the conventions of its time was simply an added dimension of the fun. My enjoyment of the read stems from it being 'utterly of its time". The inclusion of the 1862 reprinted illustrations of George Du Maurier (grandfater of author Daphne Du Maurier) added to my pleasure in reading a work from this era.
Our narrator, an insurance investigator, leads us through coi...more
Our narrator, an insurance investigator, leads us through coi...more
This is possibly the first ever detective novel published. However, it reads like a modern crime story. The detective, an agent for an insurance company, makes a report on a mysterious death having first collected witness statements, letters and other documents. Did the dead woman take poison whilst sleepwalking or is there another more sinister explanation involving other deaths?
tadinya girang liat cangkir lainnya, wah sapa tau rasa tehnya lebih enak, tapi ternyata.... baru mulai minum aja udah tersedak, coba diminum lagi eh malah tenggorokan gatel, apa belum dicuci ya cangkirnya? tapi nggak loh, cangkirnya bersih, mulus. apa yang salah tehnya? kondisinya bagus kok, sebelumnya aja minum tah yang sama. jadi kesimpulannya emang bukan cangkir teh saya, belum terbiasa sama rasa yang saya inginkan sama seperti saya memakai cangkir kesayangan saya.
This is said to be the first mystery novel ever written. It was fun to watch someone inventing a genre. It is an interesting enough read, though it is more an untangling of how/why a mystery a happened - there's not much mystery to it.
Entah trik pembunuhannya yang terlalu gampang atau cara penuturannya yang kurang pas membuat buku ini terasa biasa saja
This book marks the beginning of the Detective Mystery genre. First published in 1862 in serial form, it uses many of the narrative techniques that have been adopted and refined over the years since then. Insurance investigator Ralph Henderson, investigating the life insurance claims by Baron R--, provides a variety of interviews and documents to build a case to show that he had murdered his wife. Sometimes rather turgid reading, it is interesting to see the origin of detective fiction. This boo...more
I was fortunate to borrow a volume of Victorian Era novels, published in 1945, from my mom. "The Notting Hill Mystery" was one of the gems included. I enjoyed the interesting pace of the writing, and that the mystery was addressed by a life insurance claims investigator who definitely suspected foul play but did not believe that ultimately it could be proven in a court of law. Although the facts indeed were confusing, the investigator tied them all up in a plausible explanation at the end. A won...more
A fun quick read from a historical perspective
This is apparently considered the 1st detective novel 9from 1862), and I really enjoyed. Written in the for of letters, journal entries, policy reports, and other documents. The mystery itself is kind of whacko, but clever, and there is even actual scientific evidence involved. The policemen involved are quite professional and competent as well, which is a sharp contrast to some of the historical accounts of the time.
Also, bonus points for duels and mesmerism.
Also, bonus points for duels and mesmerism.
Whether this is truly the first detective novel in English lit or not isn't really the issue: what's important is that it's interesting, well crafted, solidly thought out, and not a little like post-modernism 100 years ahead of time (which is a reminder that post-modernism and the 19th century are very close in spirit). There's no real dramatic tension, but rather than an academic presentation of the "facts" of 3 mysterious deaths.
This was an unusual detective in the form of letters and statements which, when put together, solve and ingenious murder. I liked the unusual format as well as the clever way the author revealed the murder bit by bit.
I loved the language and vocabulary in this and the Baron was a great character. It reminded me more of 'The Woman in White' than any actual detective novels but it's easy to see it as a step towards the genre.
I'm not sure if this really is the first detective novel, but I thought it was an interesting approach for a murder mystery.
May 07, 2013
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Sep 12, 2012 06:31pm