Theodora Goss: The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter

[bibliogramma]

Some characters take on a life of their own, and demand that other authors tell stories about them, or about the other characters that inhabit their universes, long after their original creators have stopped writing about them. Sherlock Holmes and his faithful companion Watson are among those characters, as are a number of other literary creations from the same time period.

Sometimes writers are tempted to bring together such characters from different literary universes. Imagine Mina Harker, Captain Nemo, Allan Quartermain, Dr. Jekyll and Hawley Griffin as a Victorian League of superheroes - as Alan Moore did.

In her debut novel The Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter! Theodora Goss has taken this one step further, in bringing together two groups of characters derived from 19th century literature - the mad scientists whose researches pushed multiple boundaries of human knowledge and experience, and the female monsters they created.

The story begins with Mary Jekyll, the daughter of long-deceased Doctor Jekyll. Left without any income after the death of her mother, Mary is looking for any legitimate way to make enough money to support herself and her loyal housekeeper and cook. After receiving a strange notification concerting her mother’s continuing support of “Hyde” she assumes this is a clue to the whereabouts of the long missing Mr. Hyde, believed to have been involved in an unsolved murder. Remembering that the famous detective Sherlock Holmes was also involved with the case, she goes to him to see if there is still a reward for the capture of Hyde. With Watson assisting her, she discovers not the man Hyde, but his daughter Diana, who claims to be her sister. No longer welcome at the Magdalen Society where she has been cared for, Diana becomes, in essence, Mary’s ward, as the two seek to unravel the mystery of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Their investigation dovetails with Holmes’ newest case, a consultation with the police over several deaths of prostitutes in the Whitechapel area, women whose bodies were found with body parts missing. (These seem to be purely fictional, although inspired by other cases of Victorian serial murders - the names of the victims do not correspond with the 11 names in the historical Whitechapel file, several of which are attributed to Jack the Ripper.) A seal used on some surviving correspondence received by Dr. Jekyll is identical with the design found on a watch fob clutched in the hand of one of the murder victims. With this, the game is afoot, and will eventually involve some of the most famous ‘mad scientists’ and other creatures of Victorian fiction - Moreau, Rappaccini, Renfield, Van Helsing - and the legacy of the first of the mad scientists, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Goss has chosen to tell the story in an interesting manner. Ostensibly being written by a woman identified as Catherine, the text incorporates comments by Mary, Diana, Mary’s housekeeper Mrs. Poole, the scullery maid Alice, and two other women not initially identified, Beatrice and Justine. From the nature of their comments, the reader is made aware that these women are friends and colleagues who have travelled and worked together on at least one venture, and that the narrative - mostly written by Catherine - is also a means of introducing each woman and allowing her to tell her story, and recast the reader’s knowledge of her through the lens of her father’s work.

Being a Holmes enthusiast, and fairly familiar with the Victorian literature of the fantastic that is referenced in this narrative, made the reading of it a particularly enjoyable experience. I found myself double checking the names of just about every character mentioned, whether they seemed to be involved in the mystery of the murdered women or not. (I was rather vexed not to find any obvious link between Mrs. Poole and Bertha Mason Rochester’s nurse Grace Poole.)

The frequent asides of the main characters make it clear that Goss plans more adventures for the women of her book, and I am most eager to find out what comes next.