Mr. Bazalgette's Agent (British Library Crime Classics) - Softcover

Merrick, Leonard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0712357025 ISBN 13: 9780712357029

Publisher: British Library Publishing, 2013

Synopsis

Born Leonard Miller in Belsize Park, London, in 1864 to wealthy Jewish parents, Leonard Merrick began his career as an actor before abandoning the stage in 1884 to try his luck as a novelist. His first novel, Mr. Bazalgette’s Agent, was published in 1888 and features a determined and resourceful heroine in the figure of Miriam Lea, who grapples with some very modern dilemmas of female virtue and vice. The novel begins when Lea, having fallen on hard times, answers an advertisement calling for private agents. Within weeks she finds herself in Mr. Bazalgette’s employ as a private detective, traveling on a train to Hamburg in pursuit of an audacious fraudster. What follows is a journey through some of the great cities of Europe—and eventually to South Africa—as Lea attempts to track down her man.

           

In 1925, in response to a query about the book’s title, Merrick quipped: “It’s a terrible book. It’s the worst thing I ever wrote. I bought them all up and destroyed them. You can’t find any.” It seems Merrick was true to his overly self-critical word, as copies of the book can now only be found in private collections and in a handful of university and national libraries throughout the world.  

           

This new edition, republished by the British Library for their British Library Crime Classics series, offers modern crime fiction fans the opportunity to rediscover an enticing and rare detective story.

About this title

About the Author

Leonard Merrick (1864–1939) was an English novelist. He wrote twelve novels, including Violet Moses, The Worldlings, and Conrad in Question of His Youth, as well as collections of short stories and plays. Many of his stories were made into films in the 1920s.

Reviews

As scholar Mike Ashley notes in his introduction, this reissue of Merrick's first novel, originally published in 1888, is almost certainly the first ever British novel to feature a professional female detective. Miriam Lea, the narrator, says of herself, I was a governess until people discovered I had been an actress, and I was an actress till they discovered I could not act. Of the musical family with whom she lodges in London, Miriam says it resolved itself into a red-haired child who murders ˜The Carnival of Venice' with the pertinacity of a barrel-organ deprived of its variety. A suggestion that she check out the agony column of the newspaper for a suitable position leads her to a job with a detective agency. Her initial assignment puts her on the trail of an embezzler, sending her to Europe and later South Africa. A surprising amount of dry humor helps compensate for the disappointing ending. (Oct.)

Edition details

• Publisher: British Library Publishing
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0712357025
• ISBN 13: 9780712357029
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 144