num_pages: 284
description: Can you name the first detective novel ever published? For years many believed it to be Wilkie Collinss The Moonstone published in 1868. Others speculated it might be mile Gaboriaus first Monsieur Lecoq novel LAffaire Lerouge. Actually the first modern detective novel predates both of these by several yearsCharles Warren Adamss The Notting Hill Mystery originally published as an eight-part serial in Once A Week magazine in 1862 under the pseudonym Charles Felix then as a single-volume novel in 1863 by Bradbury &amp; Evans is considered to truly be the first.The Notting Hill Mystery begins in London where the wife of the sinister Baron R dies after drinking from a bottle of acid apparently while sleepwalking in her husbands home laboratory. It looks like an accident until insurance investigator Ralph Henderson learns that Baron R took out numerous life insurance policies on his wife. As Henderson investigates the case he discovers not one but three murders. Presented as Hendersons evidential findingsdiary entries family letters chemical analysis reports interviews with witnesses along with a crime scene mapthe novel displays innovative techniques that would not become common features of detective fiction until the 1920s.To the delight of all fans of detective fiction the British Library makes this landmark text available once again. This handsome new edition also includes George du Mauriers illustrations the first edition to do so since the original publication in serial form. 
language: English
title: The Notting Hill Mystery
publisher: British Library