The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective

From Wilkie Collins to the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, our traditional image of the Victorian detective is male. Few realise that real women detectives successfully investigated Victorian Britain, working both with the police and for private enquiry agencies, which they sometimes ran themselves.

Professor Sara Lodge (1989) recovers these forgotten women’s lives: from Elizabeth Joyes, who worked at St Bride’s police station and specialised in catching thieves, to Kate Easton, an actress-detective who worked out of Shaftesbury Avenue, often on cases involving sexual shenanigans.

Sara also explores the sensational role played by the cross-dressing, fist-swinging female detective in Victorian theatre. She will transport us into the murky underworld of Victorian society, revealing the female detective as both an unacknowledged labourer and a feminist icon.

About the speaker
Sara Lodge is Professor of 19th-century literature and culture at the University of St Andrews. She is the author of four books and many articles: she writes regularly for papers including The Scotsman, the Times Literary Supplement and the Wall Street Journal.  She is also an experienced radio broadcaster, whose documentaries have appeared on RTE Lyric FM and other stations.

Her latest book, The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective was featured on Radio 4 Woman’s Hour, BBC Radio London, in the Guardian, the Telegraph (which gave it five stars and dubbed it ‘a joy to read’), The Sunday Times (which called it ‘a revelation’) and The Scotsman (which picked it as one of the Scottish Books of the Year 2024). It has been shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize, Britain’s biggest prize for history writing. She’s now working on her next book, The Haunted Causeway: magic, pilgrimage and imagination on the paths to Britain’s tidal islands. She’s also hoping to turn her research on Victorian female detectives into a drama series.

If you would like to join us for this event on Tuesday 12 May, 6-7pm, please use the booking form below.