The beginning of the twenty-first century seems the best of times for Sherlock Holmes, whose legend keeps growing thanks to Guy Ritchie’s movies (2009 and 2011), TV series—the BBC Sherlock (2010–) and the CBS Elementary (2012–)—numerous pastiches and ever-expanding fanfiction ; other Victorian detectives, however, seem to tread on his heels. Not only their comeback is clearly noticeable on screen in representations of nineteenth-century crimes in such TV shows as The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher (2010–2014) or Ripper Street (2012–2016), to name just the most popular ones, but also their real history is being retold on page, for example in Haia Shpayer-Makov’s comprehensive study entitled The Ascent of the Detective: Police Sleuths in Victorian and Edwardian England (2011), or in a more introductory publication by Alan Moss and Keith Skinner, The Victorian Detective (2013). The texts gathered in this collection look beyond the Great Detective and address the revisions other Victorian detectives are currently undergoing. Before the main characters enter, however, the scene should be set by discussing the issue of the continued yet changing presence and appeal of the detective figure, their ups and downs over the years.
Various proto-detective figures had been populating the pages of pre-Victorian novels at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and of the popular press at the beginning of the nineteenth century but it is the appearance of Edgar Allan Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin that is widely considered “the prototypical amateur sleuth” (Flanders 2011, 294).1 The three stories singing of his supreme skills—“The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841), “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt (1842), and “The Purloined Letter” (1844)—have established the pattern, or even the matrix, for many a loved detective story: the amateur or private detective is an eccentric loner with a solitary, faithful but less clever companion whose role is to tell the story of the investigation; the official police force acts within its limits but cannot solve the case without the help of the detective; the course of the crime revealed by the detective at the end is surprising but logical. It seems, however, that Dupin would not have come into being without another Frenchman, a criminal-turned-detective, Eugene François Vidocq. His memoir (1828–1829), ghost-written or not, was an international publishing success, largely due to the riveting crime stories it contained. The fact that Vidocq not only became a detective, but also established in 1812 the Sûreté, a Parisian detective department , and cooperated with ex-criminals, only added to his appeal to British avid consumers of criminal tales. During the early nineteenth century, the thirst for crime stories was immense—“after the Bible and The Pilgrim’s Progress, The Newgate Calendar was the book most likely to be found in an ordinary working person’s home” (Worsley 2014, 82). The equivalent of Vidocq’s tales north of the Channel, published as early as 1827, was a pseudo-memoir of a rogue who became a Bow Street Runner , entitled Richmond; or, Scenes in the Life of a Bow Street Officer . Even though not as successful as the accounts of Richmond’s real-life Parisian counterpart, the book is representative of one of the stages in the development of the literary image of a British crime-fighter.
When imported to England, the French invention of the police and detective force was initially perceived more as an invasion. Sir Robert Peel is credited with establishing the Metropolitan Police in 1829 and the introduction of the “Bobbies” who had replaced nightwatchmen, thief-takers, and, eventually, Bow Street runners . Their job was to prevent crime, not detect it; since they were not particularly effective in dealing with crimes that had not been prevented, they were not particularly popular with society. The infamous case of Daniel Good, who killed his wife, entrapped a policeman, and escaped, is said to have been the trigger that led to the establishment of the Detective Department in 1842,2 but Sir Richard Mayne had been working on a proto-detective branch before. It was the appearance of the figure of the detective, both in the first of Poe’s stories (in 1841) and in real life, that allowed for more “decent” consumption of crime stories, especially among middle-class audiences. Class was one of the major issues behind the problems with the acceptance of police detectives, both in real life and in fiction. Allowing plainclothes police detectives to conduct enquiries in middle- and upper-class homes meant equipping representatives of the lower classes with power over “their betters” and to invade the family sanctum.
Probably the greatest “fan” of the newly established Detective Department and the man who influenced its perception was Charles Dickens :
His colourful depictions of real Scotland Yarders concealed under the rather revealing pseudonyms—‘Wield’ for Field, ‘Whichem’–Whicher , ‘Stalker’–Walker, etc.—published in the newly-launched Household Worlds in 1850–1851, helped establish a positive image of the detectives as “a superior order of police ” (Wills 1850, 368). Two of the most colourful figures that visited the magazine’s office affected Victorian literature as well.3the Detective Force organised since the establishment of the existing Police , is so well chosen and trained, proceeds so systematically and quietly, does its business in such a workman-like manner, and is always so calmly and steadily engaged in the service of the public, that the public really do not know enough of it, to know a tithe of its usefulness. (1850a, 409)
Inspector Bucket , considered to be the first “proper” English literary detective, is familiar to readers of Bleak House (1852–1853). Despite Charles Dickens’s denials (Flanders 2011, 178), the writer based the character on Charles Frederick Field (1805–1874), one of the detectives whose anecdotes and work were popularised in Household Words . Apparently, what impressed the writer was not only the real policeman’s “shrewd eye” (Dickens 1851, 265), but also his “corpulent fore-finger, which is constantly in juxta-position with his eyes or nose” (Dickens 1850a, 409) and became the tell-tale sign of the fictional Inspector.4 It was only recently that Bucket has stepped out of the Bleak House narrative thanks to Tony Jordan’s Dickensian (2015–2016). The other Scotland Yarder who impressed Charles Dickens was Jonathan Whicher (1814–1881), a man “with a reserved and thoughtful air as if he were engaged in deep arithmetical calculations” (Dickens 1850a, 410). He might have been one of Mayne’s proto-detectives (Summerscale 2009, 50) and his “artful touch” is the topic of one of the “Three Detective Anecdotes.” Still, Whicher owes his literary afterlife in the form of Sergeant Cuff to a friend of Dickens, Wilkie Collins , and The Moonstone (186...