A country doctor visits the spacious house of a Baron. But when he arrives, he draws up in shock. Everything inside and outside of the house, down to the clothing of the inhabitants, is all the same color – white. Why is everything about the house eerily bloodless?
Mary Fortune was one of the earliest female writers of crime fiction, and likely the first to write from the point of view of the detective. She enjoyed a prolific career in Australia, where she also wrote under the pseudonyms Waif Wanderer and W.W. The White Maniac was originally published in The Australian Journal, July 13th, 1867.
Writing under the ambiguous pseudonyms ‘Waif Wander’ and ‘W. W.’, Mary Fortune penned a staggering 500 detective stories over a forty-year span, from 1868 to 1908. Narrated by the fictional detective Mark Sinclair, the series comprises Sinclair’s memoirs as he looks back through a “detective’s album” of mugshots from his long police career. This volume includes eight classic stories from one of the pioneers in the detective writing genre.
A young doctor visits a Baron’s house. The house is very strange: everything is white, there isn't even one splash of colour. Why is it like that and how can someone can live in such a sterile surrounding? Why was the doctor invited there and what will he discover about its residents? This story will keep you on the edge of your seat until the last page, so if you want to solve the mystery, listen to Mary Fortune’s 'The White Maniac: A Doctor's Tale'.
B. J. Harrison started his Classic Tales Podcast back in 2007, wanting to breathe new life into classic stories. He masterfully plays with a wide array of voices and accents and has since then produced over 500 audiobooks. Now in collaboration with SAGA Egmont, his engaging narration of these famous classics is available to readers everywhere.
Mary Fortune was an Australian author who lived in the period 1833-1911. Her works were of various genres as she wrote poetry, gothic, horror tales and detective stories. Mary Fortune was one of the first female detective writers and what is even more surprising is the fact that she wrote from the detective’s perspective. She gained wide popularity with 'The Detective’s Album' which is the longest-running detective serial and published over forty years.
The Phantom Hearse means death. Death always comes to the house where it’s sighted on moonlit evenings. But why does wicked old Jones love to talk about it so much? ¶ Mary Helena Fortune was a pioneer in detective fiction, albeit largely a unknown one. She travelled from Canada to Australia in 1855, where for the next fifty years, she contributed to magazines and newspapers under the pseudonyms “Waif Wanderer”, “W.W.”and her own initials “M.H.F.”. She wrote in a variety of genres: poetry, serialized novels, memoirs, and even gothic romance. But most significantly, she wrote over 500 detective stories. Her collection of stories, The Detective’s Album, by W.W. was published in 1871, and was described as, “The first book of detective stories to appear in Australia”. Only one copy is known to remain in existence. ¶ Mary Fortune helped delineate a few of the techniques significant in detective fiction. For example, the forensic manner in which the crime is treated, and delivering the story from the point of view of the detective. The Phantom Hearse also includes a supernatural element, which is also innovative, and synchronous with some Russian crime fiction.
