ABSTRACT
We are threatened with a new variety of the sensation novel, a host of cleverly complicated stories, the whole interest of which consists in the gradual unravelling of some carefully prepared enigma. Mr. Wilkie Collins set the fashion, and now every novel writer who can construct a plot, thinks if he only makes it a little more mysterious and unnatural, he may obtain a success rivalling that of the Woman in White. We beg to protest in limine1 against any such waste of ingenuity. The Woman in White was endurable simply because the mystery to be unravelled was of its kind perfect, though we hold silently, nevertheless, that the delineation of Count Fosco was a far higher artistic effort than constructing the plot. A good detective might have prepared that, but he could not have conceived Count Fosco, or made him move if he had by the light of a special experience been able to conceive him. But there is not the slightest probability that the swarm of imitators will construct plots nearly so good, or achieve any result except that of wasting very considerable powers upon an utterly worthless end….
