Norwich bulletin., 1922-08-01
Famous Literary Mysteries

Who Wrote the First Detective Story? l
 The Sherlock Holmes" stories are masterpieces of detective fiction and may be looked upon as starting an interest in literature of this character. Previous | to their appearance the detective story was only of rare occurrence. but since then writers of all character have tried to follow them, sometimes with success, but more often with failure.
 But the deduction so necessary in the successful detective story is not of re- cent inception. Some years ago Brander Matthews, in a lecture on Edgar Allen Poe. said that so far as known Voltaire's story of Zadig was the original detective story A student of Columbia Univer- sity was present at this lecture, and he forthwith set himself to work to find how near MT. Matthews was correct in his assumption.
 This student Frazer by name, found that voltaire was not the first to adapt the story that he tells in Zagdig. He found the same idea in Chevalier de Mailly's Voyage ct Adventures des Trois Princess de Sarendip, which was print ed as early as 1719, twenty-eight years before the Voltaire novel was written. In this French story he found three princes who met a camel driver bewailing the loss of one of his herd. This is the way Frazer tells the story:
 They have noticed the tracks of such an animal and when asked by the driver if they knew of his whereabouts, the oldest replies: Was he not blind? The l second, Did he not have a tooth out?' and the third, Was he not lame? The camel driver assents with delight to the three questions and continues on his way rejoicing.
 "Not finding his camel. he returns and l accuses the moi bantering with him. 1 TO prove that what we say is true said | the eldest, your camel carried butter on one side and honey on the other And the second, and lady rode the camel, etc.
 In this case. too, somebody turns up with the beast and an explanation is demanded, just as in the Voltaire story. One prince judged that the camel was blind because the grass on one side of
 the road was gnawed down. while that on the other side, which was far better, was not touched. It wasn't hard to de- Il duct that the camel had but one eye
 Mouthfuls of half-chewed herbage , found in the road told the second prince
 that the camel had one tooth missing.
 But even De Mailly was not the origi- nal, for it was found that this tale wa; directly transcribed from an otherwise unknown Italian writer. Christifore Ar
 memo. His "Perigrinations, of whicf
 but three copies are extant. was print. ed at Venice in 1857, with the Papa permit dated 1855.
 De Mailly said upon his titled pagt that the story was translated from tht
 Persian and the same, source is credite,
 by Armeno. The story of the lost came is but one of several stories in the bool written by the Venetian.
 1 The Hebrew version has to do with
 dialogue between two Hebrew prisoners
 It Is thought to be of Sanskirt deriva < tion. The investigator even found an ex cuse for Voltaire's changing of a came to a horse in a collection of Hebrew stor ies which were written in 1900. Tn on 3 story three brothers encountered a He
 brew who has lost his horse and the
 tell him the color of the horse and tn - fact that he was blind and had carrie f a cask of oil and a cask of vinegar.
 There are other writers who claim t
 have found the first detective story 1 . Chinese literature. but whatever the or
 gin the formula for reasoning has be
 come pretty well established and it t only in the degree of horror. in the com ;. pleteness of character drawing, and 1 if the settings. commonplace or extraord e nary. that the skill of the writer has a opportunity for individuality. The de
 tective story is no doubt as early a
 story writing.