The Big Bow Mystery

by Israel Zangwill (Creator)

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Genres: Mystery, Classics, Fiction, Crime, Mystery Thriller, Historical Fiction, British Literature

264 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1892

About the author

Israel Zangwill was a British novelist, short-story writer and dramatist.

Reviews

[Gerry · Rating 2 out of 5]

I saw this book and, being the so-called first locked room mystery, I just had to purchase it, especially as I have a signed postcard of Israel Zangwill on my wall, not that that matters much I suppose but I thought it would be good to read something by him. I am pleased that I did so but it was not the greatest reading experience of my life, despite the excellent and appealing billing as 'Gaslight Crime'.

The first thing to beware of in this edition is that firstly there is a preface by Nick Robinson and secondly there is a new 1895 introduction (the book was written in 1892) by the author himself and both of them give slightly more than veiled clues as to what is going to happen in the mystery that follows. Fortunately I quickly realised this and read no further until after I had finished the book - so new readers beware.

The novel itself starts rather promisingly as in Mrs Drabdump's lodging house in Glover Street, one of the lodgers Arthur Constant does not answer the landlady's call for breakfast. She panics and goes across the road for the assistance of a neighbour, retired Scotland Yard detective George Grodman.

Between them they batter down the door to Constant's room only to discover the occupant dead with his throat slit. And not only was the door locked from the inside, all the windows were closed and there was no other way of entry or egress to the second floor room. From this point on the novel goes rapidly downhill as there is plenty of dull and uninspiring dialogue and description as Zangwill seems to see himself as another Charles Dickens pontificating on social matters. But, sadly, he does not succeed as well as Dickens does.

Various social reforms and strikes are written about as the middle part of the tale wanders aimlessly around before we get back to the matter in hand ... how was the murder committed with a locked room scenario confronting the authorities? And, in fairness to Zangwill, he pulls back some of his reputation with a reasonable, and perhaps surprising explanation (providing that that early material hadn't been read) of what had happened and it is this combined with the vivid descriptive opening covering east end London that helped the mystery limp into the two-star bracket.

Overall it was something of a disappointment; I will look at Zangwill with a different eye as I pass him in the hallway every morning from now on!

Footnote: Incidentally I have a postcard of the author signed by him.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my first brush with "gaslight" crime mystery or so the introduction describes itself - which is rather interesting since it lists a large number of titles from my "tales of mystery and the supernatural" collection but I won't quibble.

I will say that the story is engaging and easier to read than I anticipated. Now let me explain.

The first consideration was the language - now having read a few books from this era was I not expecting the language to be so recognisable or as down to earth. I guess too authors want for authenticity and at times over do the dialect and pronunciations to the point you have to re-read some sentences to decipher what they are trying to say (or is that me). But not in the case of this story - now I am assuming that the edition I am reading has not been re-edited to reflect its modern printing. So yes this made the book easy to connect with and get in.

And this leads on to my second point (or possibly as a result of it?). The fact that the original was serialised in a similar manner to many of the Conan Doyle stories. This meant that each edition had to stand on its own merits and still grip the reader sufficiently to drive them to want to read the next instalment. Now this was quite evident when you finished one chapter and started the next - where the scene and characters would shift quite dramatically and unexpectedly, and more importantly take some time to explain why they were there in the first place.

Once I had got used to this approach the story moved along at a fair pace and yes in hindsight I should have been able to work it all out but no it was still fun to get to the final denouncement and see the whole mystery neatly wrapped up.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting and amusing early mystery. The stars are for the writing, not the plot. The plot purports to be the point (as the ‘first’ locked room mystery) but it is actually beside the point for today’s reader. Instead, I enjoyed Zangwill's witty approach to satirizing the London of his day. Professional jealousy, exaggerated characters, do-gooders, the justice system, family life, crackpots...lots of wordplay and meticulous undercutting of common tropes make for lots of fun.

But there are also interwoven, if lightweight, commentaries on the labor movement of his day, the role of the benefactor, and on the Aesthetic movement as it relates to ‘real life.’ A good summer read.

The work first ran serially in a newspaper, and Zangwill later wrote a ‘mendacious’ letter to be published in the paper to the effect that when he started he didn’t know how it would be solved. But he thanked his readers for their suggestions during the duration of his run, as they had helped him craft the ending. Rot, he says in a later introduction, of course in a story like this you have to know how it works from the outset.

Also, from Zangwill's introduction to the version available at Project Gutenberg:

The Indispensable condition of a good mystery is that it should be able and unable to be solved by the reader, and that the writer’s solution should satisfy....

I like that ‘able and unable’.

Well, the first works here, but for us I’m not sure the second(satisfying solution) is true. At any rate, a few samples of the fun:

Mr. Constant wished to be woke three-quarters of an hour earlier than ususal...having to speak at an early meeting of discontented tram-men...Why Arthur Constant, B A--white-handed and white-shirted, and gentleman to the very purse of him--should concern himself with tram-men, when fortune had confined his necessary relations with drivers to cabmen at the least, Mrs. Drabdump [his landlady] could not quite make out. He probably aspired to represent Bow in Parliatment, but then it would surely have been wiser to lodge with a landlady who possessed a vote by having a husband alive. [Zangwill apparently being convinced that most wives rule the roost].

In a letter from the deceased upper class do-gooder to a friend on his reading of Schopenhauer:

I have been making his [Schopenhauer’s] acquaintance lately. He is an agreeable rattle of a pessimist...What shall one man’s life--a million men’s lives-avail against the corruption, the vulgarity and the squalor of civilization? Sometimes I feel like a farthing rushlight in the Hall of Eblis. Selfishness is so long and life so short. And the worst of it is that everybody is so beastly contented. The poor no more desire comfort than the rich culture...The real crusted old Tories are the paupers in the Workhouse. The Radical working men are jealous of their own leaders, and the leaders of one another. Schopenhauer must have organized a labor party in his salad days.

...

“Yes, but what will become of the Beautiful?” said Denzil Cantercot [the Poet].

“Hange the Beautiful!” said Peter Crowl [the very realist cobbler], as if he were on the committee of the Academy. “Give me the True.”

Denzil did nothing of the sort. He didn’t happen to have it about him.

He [Crowl] prided himself on having no fads. Few men are without some foible or hobby; Crowl felt almost lonely at times in his superiority. He was a Vegetarian, a Secularist, a Blue Ribbonite, A Republican, and an Anti-Tobacconist. Meat was a fad. Drink was a fad. Religion was a fad. Monarchy was a fad. Tobacco was a fad. ...Crowl knew his Bible better than most ministers, and always carried a minutely-printed copy in his pocket, dogs-eared to mark contradictions in the text....Cock-fighting affords its votaries no acuter pleasure than Crowl derived from setting two texts by the ears....

[Steffi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nach Edgar Allan Poes Geschichte "Mord in der Rue Morgue" wohl eine der ersten Kriminalgeschichten, die einen Mord in einem von innen verschlossenen Raum zum Gegenstand haben. Dabei bleibt Zangwill stilistisch weit hinter Poe zurück, auch wenn es interessant ist, wie er die politischen Umstände in die Geschichte integriert, indem er zwei der Protagonisten als Arbeiterführer einführt. Lesenswert ist die Geschichte auf jeden Fall: Kurzweilig, die amüsanten Dialoge (insbesondere vor Gericht) schreien nach Verfilmung. Und beim Lesen wurde mir immer klarer, dass ich die Geschichte bereits verfilmt kenne – "Hier irrte Scotland Yard" (aka The Verdict) mit Peter Lorre und Sydney Greenstreet aus dem Jahre 1946. Wenn das Buch eher eingeschränkt empfehlenswert ist, ist der Film sehr sehenswert, denn er arbeitet kongenial die Stärken der Geschichte heraus.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short novel, has the wow effect at the end.

[Oscar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Como cualquier buena novela que trate el problema del cuarto cerrado (véase ’Los crímenes de la calle Morgue’, de Edgar Allan Poe, o ’El misterio del cuarto amarillo’, de Gaston Leroux), ‘El gran misterio de Bow’ (The Big Bow Mystery, 1892), del londinense Israel Zangwill, comienza con un asesinato cometido en una habitación con las ventanas y la puerta cerradas desde el interior. Todo apunta a un suicidio, pero es imposible, ya que el arma del crimen no aparece y no hay rastros de sangre. Entonces, ¿quién es el asesino? ¿Y cómo ha cometido el asesinato?

‘El gran misterio de Bow’, una de las primeras de este género, plantea un juego de lógica, en el que todos los detalles para averiguar quién es el asesino se encuentran en la novela, sin necesidad de soluciones estrambóticas de última hora. La novela tiene grandes dosis de humor, irónico tirando a negro. No se trata sólo de una novela de misterio, también es un retrato de las clases sociales del Londres victoriano, donde nos encontramos a obreros, sindicalistas, poetas y policías.

En resumen, una novela indispensable para los amantes de las historias de detectives.

[Elizabeth (Alaska) · Rating 3 out of 5]

The GR description says this was the first locked-room mystery, but it was not. The novel even refers to Poe's The Murders in the Rue Morgue. But in Poe's and most later mysteries, we are with the detective while s/he performs an investigation. This novel is decidedly different. There is none of that. Instead we get testimony at both the inquest and the trial.

We are privy to the thoughts of the population who is outraged and astonished at the murder of a fine young man who also was working to uplift the working class. There are letters to newspapers. Was it suicide? How could it be murder with no means of getting in and out of the bedroom? Readers and letter-writers of nineteenth century London newspapers carried on conversations with each other, argued with each others thoughts. It was the equivalent of Twitter and Facebook. There are also a few main characters who help us see what is going on outside of these newspaper conversations. This is short and it took me a couple of chapters to see how Zangwill constructed his novel.

Apparently this saw many printings. The edition I read had a preface from Zangwill that was included in an edition published 4 years after it first appeared. In it, he comments on this humor, even saying he now thought it too much humor. While I didn't think it was the best of the novel, it certainly added something to it, for which I was glad.

For purists of the mystery genre who want to try to figure out the crime, this will be a disappointment. There is a lot of filler. At first I was exasperated. Then I came to realize it is just different. Published in 1892, the genre had not yet seen the likes of Christie, Sayers, and Allingham who would define crime fiction for many decades. I'm not in the least sorry I read this, but I can't find more than a middlin' 3-stars for it and even that might be a tad generous.

[Vera Brandão · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://verovsky-meninadospoliciais.bl...

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Published initially as a newspaper serial in 1891, The Big Bow Mystery is generally regarded as the first locked-room mystery novel. (It's retitled in some editions The Perfect Crime to match the title of the 1928 movie based on the book, the first screen adaptation of three.)

No one can believe it when mild-mannered Arthur Constant is found dead in his bed one morning in the house where he lodged in Bow, in London's East End. The dead man seemed to have had no enemies: he was a Christian and a socialist who practiced what he preached by trying to help the lot of the poor, he was personally generous to a fault, ever polite, ever affable and friendly. A fine, upstanding human being, in other words.

Scotland Yard, in the form of over-cocky Inspector Edward Wimp, soon focuses on Constant's fellow lodger, the trade unionist and union organizer Tom Mordaunt, whose movements on the fatal morning were suspiciously complicated and who's one of the few known to have quarreled with Constant, even though they were otherwise the best of friends. Was it possible that Constant had, behind Mordaunt's back, shared the favors -- so to speak -- of Mordaunt's fiancee?

The first big problem for Wimp is that, when Constant was found on his bed with his throat slashed open, that bed was in a room whose door was locked and bolted from within and whose windows were likewise; furthermore, the murder weapon, an open razor, was nowhere to be found. How could Constant have been murdered and the murderer escape when the room had been completely secured in this way?

Wimp's second big problem is that the man whose job he took over at the Yard, retired Inspector George Grodman, hates his guts. Grodman was among those who discovered the body, and he has his own ideas -- at complete odds with Wimp's -- about who killed Constant and how the "impossible" crime was perpetrated. We're set for a battle of titans . . .

The novel's distinctly slow in parts. After the discovery of the corpse, there's what seems an interminable account of the coroner's hearing, a hearing that ends with the coroner roundly proclaiming that both murder and suicide are equally impossible. Things pick up speed a little after this, but there are still a few longueurs to go. The language is as flowery as you might expect -- Zangwill and his editor had, after all, column inches to fill -- and a lot of the jokes that might have seemed side-splittingly funny in their day -- about Helena Blavatsky and her Theosophical teachings, for example -- are likely to be pretty impenetrable for most readers a century and a quarter later. (I'm sure there were plenty that flew right by me without my so much as noticing them.)

Although there's a lot about the novel's style that's reminiscent of Dickens, not least the use of funny names for many of the characters -- Crowl, Mrs. Drabdump, etc. -- I found myself more reminded, in terms of the text's recognition of socialism and unionism as forces for improving the lot of the common people, of Robert Tressell's The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists (1914), a novel which, while not published until after the author's death in 1911, seems to have been written quite a few years earlier. Although Tressell's style was (as I recall it some half-century later!) a lot plainer than Zangwill's, there seems a sort of kinship between the two.

The solution to the locked-room mystery, when it comes, might seem pretty obvious today, in that the general device has been used countless times since. But Zangwill got there first, and should be applauded for it.

A big thank you to my blogging pal José Ignacio Escribano for the timely reminder that it was long overdue that I read this book, a Gutenberg copy of which has been sitting on my e-reader for really quite a few years.

[natura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Muy curioso, un misterio clásico de tipo “cuarto cerrado”, al más puro estilo Edgar Allan Poe y Gaston Leroux (hay una alusión directa a “Los crímenes de la calle Morgue” en el texto), con sus incógnitas “irresolubles” y la, en principio, imposibilidad de hallar al culpable del crimen.
Con un ambiente “british” a tope y sorpresita final, lo que más destacaría es el humor socarrón que brilla en esta corta novela: cada pocos párrafos el autor coloca una sentencia, un detalle, tanto de crítica al gobierno, como a los sindicatos laboristas, o a la hipócrita sociedad victoriana, que te hacen fijarte más en todo el trasfondo de la historia que en los detalles policiacos en sí. Porque con la excusa del misterioso asesinato, Zangwill hace una criba del amor, el matrimonio, las falsas apariencias, el interés público, las figuras políticas y un montón de aspectos más de la sociedad de esa época para no dejar títere con cabeza.

Entretenido y con más miga de la que aparenta.

[Bev · Rating 4 out of 5]

This reissue of Zangwill's The Big Bow Mystery (also published as The Perfect Crime) also includes Poe's locked room story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." These are thought to be the earliest examples of the locked room novel and short story.

The Big Bow Mystery: As mentioned above, it is one of the earliest examples of the locked room mystery. The solution may seem a bit trite to those of us in the 21st Century, but it is good to remember how puzzling and fresh it must have been to readers of the London Star in 1891. The story begins at the rooming house of Mrs. Drabdump (gotta love those Victorian names). She has been directed to wake one of her tenants, Mr. Arthur Constant, early so he can make an important meeting. Naturally, she finds that she has overslept and is rushing 'round to prepare breakfast. But when she tries to rouse Constant, she receives no answer. At first she is not too alarmed. The poor man had been suffering from toothache and perhaps he feel into a deep slumber once he finally did get to sleep. But when repeated efforts fail to waken him and a final, violent assault on his door does not bring him out, she feels sure that he must be lying murdered in his bed. She rushes across the street to the home of retired policeman, George Grodman. Grodman succeeds in breaking down the locked and bolted door and a terrible sight is revealed. Constant is lying in bed with his throat cut. He is still warm...so he has not been long dead. The windows are all fastened tight. There is no weapon to be found in the room and no way the culprit could have escaped. Inspector Edward Wimp (snort) of Scotland Yard is called in to investigate officially. But there seems to be no solution. There is no item in the room with which the dead man could have harmed himself, therefore it cannot be suicide. There is no way anyone could have gotten out of the room, therefore it cannot be murder. Eventually, however, clues come Wimp's way that convince him that Tom Mortlake, Constant's fellow tenant and supposed rival, has committed the crime. A trial and conviction follows....but Grodman supplies the final twist that produces the complete solution. This is a well-written and quite witty short novel. The final twist is ingenious for its time. ★★★★

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue": The classic story credited with starting the whole detective ball rolling. Dupin is a moody, night-loving character. Faced with a seemingly impossible crime, he uses an investigative method--observing everything and discounting nothing...until it can be proven irrelevant or impossible. Definitely a forerunner of Holmes's method: "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting portions of review. Thanks.

[Mariano Hortal · Rating 5 out of 5]

http://lecturaylocura.com/el-gran-mis...

El gran misterio de Bow de Israel Zangwill. Habitación cerrada: el clásico mistery

Inducir, en su tercera acepción de la RAE, indica lo siguiente:
Fil.Extraer, a partir de determinadas observaciones o experiencias particulares, el principio general que en ellas está implícito.
Que no es lo mismo que deducir:
Sacar consecuencias de un principio, proposición o supuesto.
La mayoría de las veces, las clásicas novelas policíacas se basan entonces en el método inductivo. Parece que no mucha gente es capaz de diferenciarlos. No está de más echar un vistazo rápido a sus definiciones para tenerlo claro.
Esto nos lleva a El gran misterio de Bow (1891) de Israel Zangwill que nos ha recuperado la editorial Ardicia, una clásica historia de “habitación cerrada”, el paradigma de la literatura detectivesca o mistery novels. Afortunadamente, Israel Zangwill (1864-1926), novelista británico de origen judío, no se dejó llevar, a pesar del tiempo en que fue escrita, por tópicos ni lugares comunes. Muy al contrario, fue capaz de anticipar varias delas estrategias que se utilizarían más adelante y lo realizó con verdadera eficacia. Repasaré a continuación sus virtudes, empezando por su estilo, depurado, lírico, sin estar recargado y muy funcional; muy eficaz a la hora de describir lo que va sucediendo, las metáforas y comparaciones van desde lo habitual a intentos de hacer algo distinto; la sensación que produce es de deleite a la hora de leerlo:
“Un amanecer memorable de principios de diciembre, Londres despertó en mitad de una helada niebla gris. Hay mañanas en las que esta reúne en la ciudad sus moléculas de carbono en apretados escuadrones, mientras, en las afueras, las esparce tenuemente; de tal modo que un tren matinal que se dirigiera al centro nos llevaría des crepúsculo a la oscuridad. Pero aquel día las maniobras del enemigo eran más monótonas. Desde Bow hasta Hammersmith se arrastraba un vapor bajo y apagado, como el fantasma de un suicida pobretón que hubiera heredado una fortuna inmediatamente después del acto fatal. Los barómetros y termómetros compartían simpáticamente su depresión, y su ánimo, si es que les quedaba alguno, estaba por los suelos. El frío cortaba como un cuchillo de muchas hojas.”
Es inevitable destacar su capacidad para dibujar los personajes, en particular del ex policía Grodman, sobre todo porque utiliza un fracaso para definirlo:
“No era un pájaro madrugador, ahora que ya no tenía que salir a buscar lombrices. Podía darse el lujo de despreciar refranes como este gracias a que era el propietario de su casa y de otras de la misma calle. En el barrio de Bow, donde algunos inquilinos tienden a desaparecer durante la noche dejando facturas pendientes, resulta conveniente para un casero no alejarse demasiado de sus propiedades. Tal vez, también tenía algo que ver con la elección de su lugar de residencia el deseo de disfrutar de su grandeza entre los amigos de la infancia, pues había nacido y crecido en Bow, en cuyo cuartel de Policía local había ganado sus primeros chelines trabajando como detective amateur en sus ratos libres.
Grodman aún estaba soltero. Quizás la agencia matrimonial del Cielo podía haber seleccionado una pareja para él, pero no había sido capaz de encontrarla. Fue su único fracaso como detective.”
Otra de las grandes virtudes es, sin lugar a dudas, el buen humor que destila, como podemos inducir de la siguiente declaración en el juicio de Denzil Cartercot; de hecho consigue que, una escena tan aburrida a priori, pase sin darnos cuenta:
“A continuación, compareció Denzil Cantercot. Era poeta. (Risas). Se hallaba de camino a casa del señor Grodman, para decirle que no había podido cumplir su encargo porque estaba sufriendo “calambres de escritor”, cuando este le llamó desde la ventana del número 11 y le pidió que fuera a buscar a la Policía. No, no corrió, era un filósofo. (Risas). Les acompañó hasta la puerta, pero no subió. No tenía suficiente estómago para emociones fuertes. (Risas). La niebla gris ya era un acontecimiento lo bastante desagradable para una sola mañana. (Risas).”
Según avanza la narración se produce una confrontación, como si de un combate de boxeo se tratara; una lucha de personalidades opuestas, las de Grodman y Wimp, verdaderos artífices de un duelo detectivesco que no se atisbaba tan crudo en las primeras páginas, métodos opuestos para resolver el caso y que ponen al lector en la obligación de elegir un bando, ¿quién descubrirá el asesino?:
“Wimp era un hombre culto y de buen gusto, mientras que los interes de Grodman se concentraban exclusivamente en los problemas que planteaban la lógica y la evidencia, y los libros sobre estos temas eran su única lectura; las belles letres le importaban un comino. Wimp, con su inteligencia flexible, sentía un profundo desprecio por Grodman y sus métodos lentos, laboriosos y pesados, casi teutónicos. Es más, había estado a punto de eclipsar la brillante trayectoria de su predecesor gracias a algunas habilidosas y extraordinarias pinceladas de ingenio. Wimp era el mejor reuniendo pruebas circunstanciales, juntando dos y dos para que sumaran cinco.”
La nota final del autor recoge el último tema que quería destacar: la habilidad para crear la trama que lleva a un final que sorprende y que no se puede prever tan fácilmente, parece mentira que sea así en un caso del siglo XIX:
“La única persona que ha resuelto El gran misterio de Bow soy yo. No es una paradoja, sino un hecho al desnudo. Mucho antes de escribir el libro, me dije a mí mismo una noche que ningún relator de crímenes había asesinado a un hombre en una habitación a la que fuera imposible acceder. “
Evidentemente no voy a dar pistas, lo mejor es sumergirse en esta maravilla y dejarse llevar por la habilidad de Zangwill. Qué delicia poder encontrar publicado un libro como este, sobre todo para los que amamos las novelas de detectives. Me atrevo a sugerir a la editorial que podrían seguir con lo que no se ha publicado del Detection Club, hay mucho material y muy valioso.
Los textos pertenecen a la traducción de Ana Lorenzo de El gran misterio de Bow de Israel Zangwill para la edición de Ardicia.

[GҽɱɱαSM · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.6*
Clàssic fundacional del misteridecambra tancada, un trencaclosques intel·ligent que segueix sorprenent més d'un segle després de la seva publicació. Quan un home apareix assassinat en una habitació tancada per dins al barri londinenc de Bow, el cas desconcerta tota la comunitat i desafia les explicacions lògiques.

Amb una prosa viva i irònica, Zangwill dissecciona la societat victoriana mentre juga amb els mecanismes del misteri clàssic i converteix el crim en un duel intel·lectual: cada pista sembla sòlida fins que es dissol, cada sospitós s'esvaeix en un joc d'ombres on la lògica tradicional no és suficient.

Enginyosa, divertida i plena d’enganys calculats: una obra imprescindible del crim clàssic, magníficament traduïda al català.

[Shawn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm taking a slight break from my reading pile of literature, horror and decadence and puttering around a bit in the depths of the "single author - one book" section on the ass-end of my reading list. In truth, some DeSade (and related theory) is up next and it doesn't fit the seasonal tone, so I'm reading some late 19th century stuff.

I'm not much of a mystery fan - I respect the genre very much but the formula seems too much of a straight-jacket to me - more a reason for some fun character detail and overly constructed logic puzzles. Just not really my thing. But my reading list contains a lot of oddball stuff and the reason THE BIG BOW MYSTERY (1892) is on there is because it's the first locked room mystery novel (I'd guess "The Murders In The Rue Morgue" might be considered the first locked room murder story, but I don't know). Don't worry, I won't ruin it for you. Now, if mystery stories in general are artificial, then locked room mysteries are doubly so, and here's one written by Israel Zangwill, famous as an early agitator for Zionist causes (although later falling out of favor when he decided it would be good for the Jews to have a homeland anywhere and not specifically in the middle east) and also the man who made the phrase "melting pot" (as applicable to American Immigration) popular through his play of the same name from 1908.

A landlady is worried because her famous Labor orator roomer seems to be oversleeping. She eventually gets the famous retired detective who lives down the street to burst the door (locked AND bolted from the inside) and they discover him dead on his bed with his throat cut - windows all bolted and the chimney too small to admit a human. So, he killed himself...except, there's no killing weapon anywhere in the room (and the coroner says he died instantly). So how'd it happen? Is there a murderer to be nabbed?

I imagine that a lot of locked room mysteries follow this pattern - exacting details leading up to the discovery of the body, then further detail setting the scene. Then, there's usually (and in this case as well) a section where possible theories are brought forth and discounted. In the case of THE BIG BOW MYSTERY (named, by the way, after the area of London where it takes place), what you then get is a lot of snappy, semi-humorous back & forth patter (which was probably a rib-tickler back in the day but seems pretty artificial - Zangwill being a playwright, this sounds/reads like stage banter, really) that sets up the characters and possible suspects (lots of details of political posturing of the times, and various people with various beliefs). The police (the chief detective doesn't like the retired detective mucking in his case) arrests the most likely suspect and builds a flimsy, circumstantial case - which bugs the retired detective no end. It builds up to a last minute reprieve wherein we learn THE TRUTH.

And "The Truth", well, is not really all that fair and betrays a distinct lack of understanding of the biological reality of the facts of death, but that's all I'll say. Interesting but not amazing, more of a museum piece. Mystery fans may be interested, but the general reader need not bother.

[Marta Clua · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un dels meus propòsits aquests dies de vacances és baixar la pila de pendents, que en tinc uns quants. De fet m'estic resistint a anar a la llibreria...( Almenys fins al setembre que ja tinc fitxades algunes novetats que cauran segur)

Un dels que fa temps que tinc a la pila és aquest que avui us ressenyo.
És tracta de "El gran misteri de Bow" d'en Israel Zangwill traduït al català per l'Eloi Creus i que ha editat excel·lenment @biblclandestina.
Ens situem a Bow, un districte de l'East End del Londres de principis del segle passat. L'Arthur Constant, activista pels drets del treballadors apareix mort a la seva habitació, aparentment tancada amb clau i on sembla totalment improbable que algú hagi pogut accedir. Tot un gran misteri què sembla no poder-se resoldre... Però la premsa i les ments més brillants de la ciutat faran tot de càbales per desxifrar l'enigma.
Ho resoldran? Això no us ho explicaré pas, ho haureu de descobrir però us diré que té un bon final (bé almenys a mi m'ha sobtat)
Aquesta novel·la està considerada com la primera que va incloure un assassinat amb cambra tancada, i potser ara no ens sorprèn tant però en el seu moment va tenir molta repercussió i es va considerar molt innovadora.
No només per tenir un argument enginyós i ben tramat sinó pq també fa un bon retrat de l'època, amb un humor fi i irònic, un estil molt elegant.
Pel que he llegit, aquesta història es va publicar per fascicles en un diari de l'època i puc entendre la fascinació que els lectors en devien sentir en llegir-la dosificada, i anar elucubrant com podria acabar.
"el gran misteri de Bow" és un llibre que es llegeix àgilment, una història que t'atrapa i que gaudeixes fins al final (sóc molt de llegir misteris a l'estiu, ho confesso)

És el primer llibre de @biblclandestina que llegeixo però en tinc un altre a la lleixa dels pendents, que segurament caurà més aviat que tard.

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written originally in 1892, The Big Bow Mystery is supposedly the earliest example of a full-length locked-room mystery. The action begins as one Mrs Drabdump, who rents rooms to lodgers in London, goes to wake up one Mr. Constant. She can't wake him up and gets herself completely agitated to the point where she goes across the street to fetch a neighbor for help. Upon breaking down the locked and bolted door in the room, they find Mr. Constant dead. The neighbor, George Grodman, a retired detective, and Inspector Edward Wimp of Scotland Yard start investigating the crime.

This book is a bit difficult to read -- very wordy at times. However, if you get the urge to skim it, don't...the clues are all there, many of them within the space of conversations between characters.

The characterizations are just okay; I didn't personally get attached to any one character -- the focus of the book is more on the solution to the mystery, although there is an interesting rivalry between Grodman and Wimp, which helps to add a bit to the story.

Truthfully, this is really a book for those who a) enjoy historical mysteries, b) who really like locked-room mystery (an ingenious solution awaits the patient), or people curious as to the origins of the genre. It's a bit over wordy for modern readers, and I don't think cozy mystery fans would enjoy it very much. It is a bit funny in places as well.

Overall...I'm happy I read it, but it's not one of my favorites in the genre.

[LanaBanana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ein wirklich und wahrhaftig genialer Kriminalroman und dazu eines der Ersten überhaupt! Absolut lesenswert, spannend und ein Zeugnis der ersten Kriminalromane.

[Paradoxe · Rating 3 out of 5]

<< Στους κατώτερους κύκλους συνηθίζεται να αποκαλείς τη γυναίκα σου
μητέρα. Στους ανώτερους κύκλους είναι στη μόδα να αναφέρεσαι σε αυτήν ως
“η γυναίκα” με τον ίδιο τρόπο που αναφέρεσαι στο “Χρηματιστήριο” ή στον
“Τάμεση”, χωρίς να διεκδικείς ιδιαίτερο ιδιοκτησιακό καθεστώς. Από
ένστικτο, οι άνθρωποι ντρέπονται να είναι ηθικοί και σπιτόγατοι >>

Ο Ζάνγκουιλ είναι ενδιαφέρων συγγραφέας. Διαφωνώ βέβαια με το χαρακτηρισμό Ντίκενς του γκέτο, πρωτίστως γιατί έχει διαφορετικό στιλ και εν συνεχεία γιατί δεν είναι τόσο πολυλογάς, ούτε τόσο ‘’γλωσσικός στυλίστας’’. Άλλωστε, θεωρώ το Ντίκενς υπερτιμημένο. Το αληθινό διαμάντι ανάμεσα στους δυο φίλους, ήταν φυσικά ο Κόλλινς. Κι εδώ τοποθετείται ο Ζάνγουιλ. Σα γέφυρα απ’ τον Κόλλινς στον Τσέστερτον. Στερείται βέβαια της υποβλητικής ατμόσφαιρας του πρώτου και του τεχνάσματος με τα αντικρουόμενα πυρά που χρησιμοποιεί ο δεύτερος για να δημιουργεί φαινομενικές παραδοξολογίες. Κινείται περισσότερο στον κανόνα του άμεσου καρφιού. Πολύ λιγότερο συναισθηματικός απ’ τον Κόλλινς, πολύ λιγότερο αδυσώπητος απ’ τον Τσέστερτον. Αλλά ανήκει πάντως σε αυτή τη γραμμή συγγραφέων. Το αστόχως χαρακτηρισμένο χιούμορ, δεν είναι χιούμορ ( ευτυχώς ), είναι λεπτοφυής ένδειξη διάνοιας και κάποιου που αποφάσισε να πει τα σύκα, σύκα.

Κάποιος που θέλει να διασκεδάσει με αυτή την ιστορία, όπως ξεκίνησα εγώ που βρήκα το ελεύθερο pdf και μου φάνηκε αρκετά ενδιαφέρον ανάγνωσμα τύπου μπλοκμπαστεροκατάσταση του Σαββατόβραδου, σαφώς θα διασκεδάσει κυνηγώντας δολοφόνους στο κλειδωμένο δωμάτιο, αν και θα τον κουράσουν μάλλον, τα ‘’εκτός θέματος’’ που είναι διαρκή, αν και περιέχουν κλειδιά για τη λύση του μυστηρίου. Δυστυχώς για εμένα, όσο κι αν αναζητώ συχνά πυκνά ένα καλό αστυνομικό εργάκι για διασκέδαση και συνοδεία με πατατάκια απ’ το λιντλ, ελλείψει διάθεσης να βυθιστώ σε κακές ερμηνείες και κάκιστα σενάρια στην τηλεόραση που δεν έχω, όταν συναντάω τέτοια καρότα μέσα σ’ ένα κείμενο, ξεχνάω τα πατατάκια και τη χαλαροδιάθεση και κυνηγάω τα καρότα, που αρκετά επιδέξια τραβάει ο συγγραφέας από ‘δω κι από ‘κει.

Τέλος, ένας συγγραφέας που εκφράζεται με τέτοιο σεβασμό, στο πως ακριβώς έγραψε κάτι ο Σοπενάουερ, ασχέτως αν συμφωνεί ή διαφωνεί, προφανώς είναι κάποιος που έχει κερδίσει την προσοχή μου, ενώ παράλληλα, είναι ενδιαφέρουσα η χιαστί γνώση, κατά πως φαίνεται του άσπονδου διδύμου Νίτσε / Τολστόι κι ενδεχομένως του καπετάν φασαρία, Ουάιλντ. Ενδιαφέρον επίσης, πως η Κρίστι σε κάποιο βιβλίο που δε θυμάμαι έχει ένα χαρακτήρα που εμφανίζεται παντού σαν από μηχανής δαίμονας και θυμίζει σε μεγάλο βαθμό, ένα πιο ψύχραιμο και σταθερό Πήτερ Κρόουλ. Σε ένα από τα λιγότερο ‘’αστυνομικά’’ της. Όπως βέβαια, εδώ συναντάμε και το άλτερ έγκο του Σιμενόν που έγραψε τις Δεσποινίδες και τον Ανθρωπάκο απ’ το Αρχαγγέλσκ, αν και χαρακτηρίζεται από μεγαλύτερη βραδύτητα αυτός ο τελευταίος και πιο υποδόριο κατηγορώ.

Νομίζω πως γίνεται σαφές ότι δεν είναι ακριβώς αστυνομικό, ούτε εντελώς διασκεδαστικό και γι’ αυτό ίσως πιο διασκεδαστικό για σπασίκλες σαν εμένα.

Κάτω από 4, πάνω από 3.

[Marina Maidou · Rating 5 out of 5]

Το μεγάλο μυστήριο του Μπόου - Ίζραελ Ζάνγκουιλ
Το λεγόμενο ως αεροστεγές έγκλημα ή μυστήριο κλειστού δωματίου είναι μια υποκατηγορία της αστυνομικής λογοτεχνίας όπου έχουμε ένα απλό σενάριο: ένα πτώμα κι ένα κλειδωμένο από μέσα δωμάτιο. Πρέπει να βρεθεί η λύση (πέρα από μεταφυσικές εξηγήσεις για φαντάσματα, στοιχειά και παραισθήσεις) με απόλυτα λογική συνέπεια. Ο πρώτος διδάξας ήταν ο Έντγκαρ Άλαν Πόε με Τα Εγκλήματα Της Οδού Μόργκ και κατόπιν κι άλλοι, όπως ο Άρθουρ Κόναν Ντόιλ, η Άγκαθα Κρίστι, ο Γκαστόν Λερού, ο Πόλ Χάλτερ δοκίμασαν τη μέθοδο αυτή. Τώρα, αφού κάναμε το μάθημα Ιστορίας της Αστυνομικής Λογοτεχνίας (όσοι κοιμηθήκατε, ξυπνήστε), ας πάμε στο ψητό.
Εδώ λοιπόν έχουμε το κλασσικό σενάριο: ο Άρθουρ Κόνσταντ ανακαλύπτεται δολοφονημένος στο δωμάτιό του, το οποίο είχε ο ίδιος αμπαρώσει και κλειδώσει. Πριν απ' όλα να ενημερώσω ότι το βιβλίο μπορεί να το διαβάσει όποιος θέλει από τη ιστοσελίδα των Εκδόσεων Σαΐτα, εντελώς δωρεάν. Ιδού και ο σύνδεσμος:
http://www.saitapublications.gr/2018/...
Ο συγγραφέας έχει παρομοιαστεί με τον Τσαρλς Ντίκενς, αν και θεωρώ ότι τον αδικεί λίγο αυτή η σύγκριση, αφού το μόνο κοινό σημείο που έχουν είναι ότι ότι ήταν κι οι δύο Λονδρέζοι και ότι σατυρίζουν και ανατέμνουν διεξοδικά τις κοινωνικές συμβατικότητες της εποχής τους.
Μου άρεσε η ιστορία αυτή, επειδή όντως δεν τον βρήκα τον δολοφόνο και δεν αισθάνθηκα αδικημένη όταν αποκαλύφθηκε τελικά, επειδή ένα ελάττωμα των μυστηρίων αυτών ήταν πως στη μάχη του σασπένς οι συγγραφείς έπεφταν στην παγίδα να βάζουν τον πλέον άσχετο με την υπόθεση, ακόμα κι αν ψυχολογικά δεν ταίριαζε με καμία λογική. Μερικούς ίσως τους δυσκολέψει η κάπως περίπλοκη ομιλία των χαρακτήρων στα πρώτα κεφάλαια, αλλά η επιμονή θα ανταμείψει με την τελική ανατροπή, ιδίως όταν στην ανατροπή αυτή υπάρχει κι άλλη μία ακόμα πιο αναπάντεχη. Κρίμα που ο συγγραφέας περιόρισε το ταλέντο στο αστυνομικό μυστήριο μόνο στο συγκεκριμένο βιβλίο, επειδή με αφορμή έναν φόνο βρίσκει την ευκαιρία να ξεδιπλώσει τις διαχρονικές αλήθειες σχετικά με την αντίληψη του ανθρώπου στα γεγονότα που τον περιβάλλουν και τις παγίδες της, στις οποίες ο άνθρωπος σχεδόν πάντα πέφτει.

[Dayna Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Golden Age mystery by an author not named Christie or Sayers. This story is regarded as the first full length locked room mystery. When a young political organizer is found in his locked room with his throat slit and no way anyone could have gotten in or out, retired Inspector Grodman is called in to solve the case before his rival in Scotland Yard does. Very funny in places, if you are a fan of dry British humor. This book has a very surprise ending. A must read for fans of Golden Age mysteries.

[Daniel Sevitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perfectly formed Victorian mystery. A murder takes place in the fog, followed by the oddest of studies of several characters peripherally connected to the deceased. I don't know enough Dickens to judge whether Zangwill is a Jewish version, but there is great humour here and pride and self-importance and gossip and some of those other trappings we associate with the other fellow.

Billed as the first ever locked-room mystery, the murder itself seems a little inconsequential, but as a zesty bit of undiscovered Victorian crime fiction, this was a breezy treat.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was 1892. It was originally published as a serial. Some Goodreads reviewers liked it. Others didn't. They were all correct. I give credit to a man who published one well-regarded mystery, and then no more.

[Jacqueline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scotland Yard / Dick Tracy vibes, though at times I got lost within the narrative plot due to all the twist and turns. It was a great listen and had me wanting to know the who, what, where, when, why, and how? “Sensation” lol 😆

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious, nutty locked-room mystery story written by a 19th century Zionist. One of a kind.

[Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second story in this volume , by Edgar Allan Poe , is a landmark in the crime fiction genre. The first story is enlivened by Israel Zangwill’s very dry and incisive sense of humour.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mrs. Drabdump, of 11 Glover Street, Bow, was one of the few persons in London whom fog did not depress. She went about her work quite as cheerlessly as usual.

She is quite a brilliant, gloomy character of a landlady, and the whole of this novel was immensely enjoyable. The actual locked-room mystery was perhaps a little heavy handed, but for a serial written in four weeks -- that had the felicity of responding to some of its reader's guesses within its pages -- it is quite awesome. I loved the nod to Dickens in the names and the form of it, but it is far funnier and stripped of most of the Dickensian sentimentality.

There are a number of funny digs at hack writing in here, in the introduction as well as the story.

So much written about the East End was written to to uncover and to educate on poverty and working class misery on the one hand, or to titillate with crime and tales of the underworld. It occurred to me halfway through this how wonderful it was to read something without any of those aims. To read something set in the East End because the East End is what the author knew, to involve the whole panoply of East End characters, from landladies to Oxford and Toynbee House gentlemen to labour organisers with political pretensions to hack journalists scrounging their way and their ongoing debates with their friends the cobblers and the ex-detectives. Some theosophy thrown in along with the socialism. It is therefore mocking and irreverent, but compassionate too. Written from the inside as one of this great diverse throng, too often reduced to caricature.

That said, there is no doubt where his sympathies lie, which of course I also loved. This is a time of organising to change the world. Near the end he allows himself an aside:

A sudden consciousness of the futility of his existence pierced the little cobbler like an icy wind. He saw his own life, and a hundred million lives like his, swelling and breaking like bubbles on a dark ocean, unheeded, uncared for.

"The Cause of the People," he murmured, brokenly, "I believe in the Cause of the People. There is nothing else."

Israel Zangwill (1864-1926) born in London to immigrant parents, was long a champion of the oppressed. In reading about the suffragettes and East End struggles, his name appears time and time again. He had a complicated relationship to Zionism, wrote numerous books and plays, including a play about America as the 'melting pot' which earned him a letter from Roosevelt. Reading this, I thought to myself he is someone I would have really loved to know, so I shall investigate further at some point -- or read more of his fiction.

[Helen Colquett · Rating 1 out of 5]

Whew this was not a great read... I was enticed by the cover and how it was deemed “ the best murder mystery of its time” on my special edition copy. Welp, it needs to stay in this time. I truly know what it means for a book to be timeless.

To further explain, the book was written in a difficult to read way but I could still sort of grasp the plot. I was stubborn and wanted to know how it ended and it was less than satisfying. Life is too short to painfully finish a book, friends.

[Martina Sartor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Il primo vero romanzo con una camera chiusa
"E' indispensabile per un buon giallo - che il lettore sia o meno in grado di risolvere - che la soluzione sia in ogni caso soddisfacente. Spesso il giallo si legge con il fiato sospeso finché non si arriva alla soluzione, per poi rimanere con la sensazione di essere stati derubati con perfidia. E' altresì importante che la soluzione non sia soltanto adeguata, ma che tutte le informazioni vengano date nel corso del libro."
Questo è quanto dice l'autore stesso in una prefazione del libro. E credo di poter dire che la soluzione è assolutamente soddisfacente e con tutti gli indizi a disposizione del lettore. Posso dire che ad un certo punto la soluzione balena anche agli occhi del lettore, specialmente di lettori che in oltre un secolo dall'uscita del libro hanno letto camere chiuse su camere chiuse e quindi sono avvezzi a tutti i trucchi.
In questo caso l'abilità di Zangwill sta nel sviare l'attenzione da questa possibile soluzione, facendo pensare al lettore "No, troppo banale e troppo facile", e nel creare un'atmosfera e uno sfondo sociale che fa pensare ad altri moventi e ad altre soluzioni.
M'è piaciuto che Zangwill abbia scelto proprio quel colpevole, anche se le motivazioni sono opinabili. E ancor più m'è piaciuto il vero colpo di scena finale. Un po' meno la scappatoia scelta dal colpevole.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

This newspaper serial from the 1890s is a decidedly mixed blessing. In my eBook anthology, it is a bit short of a hundred pages, making me wonder if I didn’t get an abridged copy. Be that as it may, there were strengths, most notably lovely language and an intriguing mystery beginning, a murdered man in a room locked and secured from the inside. In the included preface, the author acknowledges that even HE didn’t know whodunit at the beginning, and he solved it as the story neared its climax, deliberately working it out so that the murderer was one whom nobody had suspected in the readers’ responses to the newspapers in which it was serialized. For this reader, that left an unsatisfactory conclusion, one which didn’t follow in any compelling way from the story, a story which, given the ending, in retrospect seemed to do a lot of aimless wandering around. I would read more Zangwill for his use of language, but would be hard-pressed to recommend this mystery.

[Charlotte Wildflower · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't like it. I probably only should have given it one star - but I recognize good prose when I hear it, and it was present several times.
The problem was that the characters were flat, the court scenes (which were legion) silly and the whole book just seemed to have been way way longer then the mystery could bear.
Given that it was a short book it is not a good indicator...

An interesting thing is a lot of information on how different people live, and society works.
The interesting lies in it being written in 1892 and a world apart from our lives today. If you are historically interested, that at least can be a help in getting you through the book.