Wilkie Collins: The Critical Heritage (1974), edited by Norman Page.
269 In 1927 T.S. Eliot compared . . . fallible.' From an article in the Times Literary Supplement of 4 August 1927.
270 Henry James characterised . . . works of science.' From 'Miss Braddon', unsigned review in The Nation, 9 November 1865.
270 In May 1866 Samuel Kent renewed his plea . . . congestion of the lungs. Papers on Samuel Kent's application to retire on full pay in HO 45/6970. In March the annual report of the factory inspector Robert Baker had referred to the great wrong done to Samuel in the years since Saville's death. An extract from Baker's account of his colleague's trials, including the 'threatened blindness' and subsequent paralysis of Mrs Kent, was published in The Times on 24 March 1866. According to her death certificate, Mary Kent died at Llangollen on 17 August 1866 – Samuel was present at her death.
270 That summer he was awarded . . . common and cruel. See The Times, 9 July 1866.
271 Through the winter of 1867. Information about William Kent's life after 1865 from Savant of the Australian Seas (1997) by A.J. Harrison. An electronic second edition of this biography, completed in 2005, is available on the STORS website of the State Library of Tasmania – members.trump.net.au/ahvem/Fisheries/Identities/ Savant.html.
271 He gave the name 'retrospective prophecy' . . . a word as 'back-teller'!' said Huxley. From the essay 'On the Method of Zadig: Retrospective Prophecy as a Function of Science' (1880). In Lady Audley's Secret Mary Braddon described the detective's procedure as 'retrograde investigation'. The American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce developed his theory of 'abduction', or retrospective deduction, in about 1865. 'We must conquer the truth by guessing,' he wrote, 'or not at all.' For the idea of 'backward hypothesising', see: The Sign of Three: Dupin, Holmes, Peirce (1983), edited by Umberto Eco and Thomas A. Sebeok; The Perfect Murder (1989) by Peter Lehman; and Forging the Missing Link: Interdisciplinary Stories (1992) by Gillian Beer.
272 'Alone, perhaps, among detective-story writers . . . more essential and more strange.' From Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens (1911) by G.K. Chesterton. Chesterton was adapting Job 19: 'For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth' (King James Version of the Bible).
Others have found the endings to detective stories disappointing: 'The solution to a mystery is always less impressive than the mystery itself,' wrote Jorge Luis Borges in the short story 'Ibn Hakkan-al-Bokhari, Dead in His Labyrinth' (1951). 'Mystery has something of the supernatural about it, and even of the divine; its solution, however, is always tainted by sleight of hand.'
273 He left his money . . . joint executors. From Samuel Kent's will, dated 19 January 1872 and proved by William on 21 February that year.
273 In January 1872 Samuel Kent . . . of a stillborn boy. Biography from Savant of the Australian Seas (1997, revised 2005) by A.J. Harrison; Guidebook to the Manchester Aquarium (1875) by William Kent; A Manual of the Infusoria (1880–82) by William Kent; death certificate and will of Samuel Kent; birth announcement in The Times; marriage certificates of William Kent; census of 1881.
275 In 1875 William's wife . . . obstruction of the bowel. According to the death certificate, she died in Withington, Manchester, on 15 February.
275 Jack and Charlotte Whicher . . . fields of lavender. Lavender Hill information from: Directory for Battersea Rise and the Neighbourhoods of Clapham and Wandsworth Commons (1878); Directory for the Postal District of Wandsworth (1880); The Buildings of Clapham, edited by Alyson Wilson (2000); and Battersea Past, edited by Patrick Loobey (2002).
276 In the summer of 1881 . . . went to his wife. From Whicher's death certificate, will and probate in the Family Records Centre and the Court of Probate.
276 After Jack's death . . . executor of her will. From Charlotte Whicher's will and probate at the Court of Probate.
277 Williamson was . . . unofficial hours.' From Fifty Years of Public Service (1904) by Arthur Griffiths.
277 The Chief Superintendent . . . a game of chess. From Scotland Yard: Its History and Organisation 1829–1929 (1929) by George Dilnot.
277 'A Scot, from the crown of his head . . . valuable public servant.' From Scotland Yard Past and Present: Experiences of Thirty-Seven Years (1893) by Timothy Cavanagh.
277 Field – who by the 1870s was reduced almost to poverty. In a letter written in January 1874 from 'Field Lodge', his home in Chelsea, he begged a client for ?1 that he was owed – he had spent the past four months ill in bed, he said, and his doctor's bill was ?30. From a letter in the British Library manuscripts collection: Add.42580 f.219. Field died later that year.
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