Dick Donovan: The Glasgow Detective

Before Sherlock Holmes, there was Dick Donovan. The name struck terror into the hearts of thieves, murderers, embezzlers, swindlers and criminals of every class, and his exploits gave delight to millions of readers worldwide from the 1880s onwards. The first internationally popular Victorian police detective, Dick Donovan was Glasgow's very own protector of the peace. A master of disguise, dogged pursuer of the guilty, nemesis of all evildoers, Donovan was the detective sans pareil of his age. Dick Donovan was the lead character in a hugely successful series of over 200 stories and books written under that pen-name by James Emmerson Preston Muddock. The appearance of his cases in print predated Arthur Conan Doyle's first Sherlock Holmes story, and during Conan Doyle's lifetime tales of Donovan rivalled the stories of Holmes in popularity. Dick Donovan achieved an international reputation as the master sleuth, and is reputedly repsonsible for American detectives being known popularly as 'Dicks'. Now the stories are available again for the first time in decades, with a Foreword about the extraordinary life and works of J.E Preston Muddock by Bruce Drurie, the foremost world authority on Dick Donovan - The Glasgow Detective.