Charles Warren Adams,George du Maurier
Can you name the first detective novel ever published? For years, many believed it to be Wilkie Collinsâ€™s ,The Moonstone,, published in 1868. Others speculated it might be Ã‰mile Gaboriauâ€™s first Monsieur Lecoq novel, ,Lâ€™Affaire Lerouge,. Actually, the first modern detective novel predates both of these by several yearsâ€”Charles Warren Adamsâ€™s ,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 & 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 husbandâ€™s 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 Hendersonâ€™s evidential findingsâ€”diary entries, family letters, chemical analysis reports, interviews with witnesses, along with a crime scene mapâ€”the 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 Maurierâ€™s illustrations, the first edition to do so since the original publication in serial form.Â 
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The Notting Hill Mystery