Burton was a London stage actor who emigrated (under perhaps scandalous circumstances) from England to the United States in 1834 and over time earned great renown in America as an actor, theater manager, playwright, author, editor, publisher, critic and Shakespearean scholar. While living in Philadelphia he started Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine in 1837, hired Edgar Allen Poe as co-editor in 1839 and eventually sold the magazine to George Rex Graham in 1840. Graham’s Magazine is where Poe’s story, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”, would be published in 1841.
Burton and Poe had a stormy and complex relationship (understandable due to Burton’s often violent temper and Poe’s erratic behavior). Poe had, perhaps unreasonable, expectations of first refusal if the magazine was ever put up for sale. That Poe was not considered reliable enough to buy the magazine yet talented enough to be kept on as an editor and contributor speaks much to Poe’s physical and mental health at the time.
Burton had a tempestuous and colorful private life owing mostly to his violent temper and propensity to marry multiple women without bothering to divorce any of them. At the time of his death in New York City in 1860 he had accumulated great wealth including at least two homes and an extensive library of over 20,000 volumes housed in his Glen Cove estate on Long Island.
The reason I wrote this essay on William Burton is because I believe he may possibly (and unknowingly) have written the earliest recognizable fictional detective story in 1837 thereby beating Poe by four years. I was researching early female detectives on the Jess Nevins website called Fantastic, Mysterious and Adventurous Victoriana when I came across a reference to a story by Burton titled “The Secret Cell” published in his Gentleman’s Magazine in 1837.
Google has digitalized the 1837 issues of the magazine so I downloaded and read the story. Burton is ostensibly narrating an event from eight years earlier when he was still living in London. Since he offers a detailed narrative containing the extensive verbatim conversations of many people/characters, I assume the reminiscence device he employs is simply that—a device designed to lead his readers into the fictional story. Action begins in “The Secret Cell” when Burton’s former laundress calls upon him to help find her missing 17-year old daughter. Burton soon enlists the aid of a friend “in the police department”. From that point forward Burton acts as the police detective’s Watson and we are off on an exciting adventure involving a disappointed heir, kidnappers, London low-lifes, a private asylum, dramatic coach rides and plenty of “fisty-cuffs”. There is little deduction, or as Poe would say a few years in the future, ratiocination present but plenty of investigative work is done. The detective, unfortunately named L________, is quite effective at disguises and dialects and is certainly brave and dogged but is far from infallible. He makes several mistakes and misjudgments during the course of his investigation but overcomes them because of his unfailing determination to solve the case. Early in the investigation he deploys his wife undercover to gain some important information. Contrary to what Jess Nevins and others may believe, this does not make Mrs. L_______ the first female PI. I consider her a precursor to Miss Pinkerton (Hilda Adams) the nurse/detective created by Mary Roberts Rinehart. Hilda often went undercover to aid the police in their investigations.
The story is brought to a satisfactory conclusion, in part, due to the actions of a small dog. Unfortunately, Burton undercut the dramatic conclusion because early in the narrative he reveals that the girl will ultimately be rescued.
In “The Secret Cell” we have detectives who investigate and, in a manner, detect. We have various police constables giving a hand and a mystery is solved. Is this not a detective story? Granted, this story runs more along the lines of Vidocq rather than Dupin and the, what we now would consider Nick Carter-ish pulp fiction-like action is a bit over-the-top, yet I could not help thinking that Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson could easily have slipped into the shoes of Burton’s detective and narrator.
Burton seems not to have ever realized that he invented a new type of story since he never challenged Poe’s historic primacy in the development of the detective story. It could be that Poe’s importance in this new genre was not well understood and recognized during Burton’s lifetime. Since Burton went on to so much great success after he wrote “The Secret Cell” perhaps he simply forgot about a minor literary piece he created to fill some pages in a barely remembered magazine venture.
I am not fully convinced that my opinion regarding the importance of “The Secret Cell” is correct. Michael Grost has published some of his thoughts regarding this matter on his extensive website “A Guide to Classic Mystery and Detection”. His comments plus a link to the actual story can be found in the Casebook Fiction section of his site.