The Case of the First Mystery Novelist

New York Times ^ | 1/7/2010

[nickcarraway]

Every detective tale needs a red herring, and I had mine: What if I pursued the author of “Velvet Lawn” instead? I found that just one other work, an earlier and unpublished one, shared the same title. It was written by . . . Benjamin Disraeli.

The novelist and prime minister was an intriguing suspect: authors are loath to leave good titles unused, and Saunders, Otley published some of Disraeli’s books. His political career also gave him good reason for a pseudonym. Yet the mystery’s style didn’t match his, and it’s unmentioned in his copious correspondence. I had a motive, but no smoking gun or fingerprints: Disraeli wasn’t my man.

I’d almost given up when I stumbled upon a Literary Gossip column in The Manchester Times for May 14, 1864. The sole identification of Charles Felix had lain there for 146 years, hidden in this single sentence: “It is understood that ‘Velvet Lawn,’ by Charles Felix, the new novel announced by Messrs. Saunders, Otley & Co., is by Mr. Charles Warren Adams, now the sole representative of that firm.”

The author was hiding in plain sight: There was no publisher correspondence with Charles Felix because he didn’t need to write to himself.

A traveler and journalist once best known for a fractious elopement with a relative of Samuel Coleridge, the publisher Charles Warren Adams (1833–1903) bears other hints of his authorship. There’s his law school training, which underlies the novel’s evidentiary process, and a previous book on parlor games — The London Review’s puzzle comparison struck closer than its reviewer realized.

Adams was also notably religious, which points to an unexpected characteristic of the first detective novel: it’s profoundly moral. It asks not just how evil exists, but what is to be done about it. Detective novels, like sermons,

[nickcarraway]

Ping

[SunkenCiv]

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[nickcarraway]

I’m pretty sure I didn’t, but I am open minded on the issue...

[SunkenCiv]

One of those merry mixups with a time machine. :’)