"Mr. Furbush"

Introduction

The protagonist of the anonymous short story “Mr. Furbush” is “Detective Furbush—a man of genteel proclivities, fond of fancy parties and the haut ton.” Such a character formation will become increasingly familiar to followers of detective fiction, reaching its apex, perhaps, in Dorothy Sayers’s Lord Peter Wimsey.

“Mr. Furbush” reminds us that the detective story as a genre was growing up alongside of various technologies that would become integral to modern forensic science. Our investigator solves a murder case by doing successive enlargements of a photograph of the murder scene that was, coincidentally, taken while the murder was happening.

This story, judged as a work of fiction, is not especially noteworthy. One is surprised to find, therefore, that it is immediately followed, in issue 179 of Harper’s, by a new installment of Wilkie Collins’s Armadale (1864-66). Armadale, a novel of psychological suspense, was among Collins’s major works; and Collins remains an acknowledged master of mystery writing. Such is the highly variegated tapestry of fictions to be found in periodicals such as Harper’s.

Additional Information

Label

"Mr. Furbush"

Author

Harriet Elizabeth Prescott Spofford

Original Publication Date

1865

New Publication Date

1865

Publisher

Harper's New Monthly Magazine

Location

Butler Stacks

Case

4