ABSTRACT
‘Disappearances’ was EG’s first non-fictional contribution to Household Words, 3 (7 June 1851), pp. 246–50. It was succeeded, at irregular intervals, by a number of discursive essays and informal book reviews, which continued until the weekly’s demise in 1859. ‘Disappearances’, unlike her other non-fiction, had an extensive afterlife, initially to her surprise, and eventually much to her irritation. A series of anecdotes about individuals who vanished under mysterious and inexplicable circumstances, its underlying point was that the recently-established Detective Police would have solved the mysteries.
