I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that a writer, both of whose parents came from a long line of French and English dissenters, radicals, and feminists, should take what feels like an explicitly female and nuanced approach to retelling one of the best-known true crime stories of the 19th century. 

Marie-Belloc Lowndes was the great-granddaughter of the dissenting scientist Joseph Priestley and the daughter of Bessie Parkes, feminist, radical and anti-slavery activist, and friend of women such as George Eliot and Barbara Boudichon. In her long life she was to write over 100 novels, plays, and non-fiction works – including the creation of a Belgian detective called ‘Hercules Popeau’ - but her most notable contribution was her 1913 book ‘The Lodger’. 

Originally a 1911 short story, Belloc-Lowndes expanded it into a series published in the Daily Telegraph then a single-volume novel. We perhaps know it better today as the source material for one of Alfred Hitchcock’s first great successes, the silent movie ‘The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog’. 

The book tells the story of Mr. and Mrs. Bunting, owners of a failing lodging in London, who see in Mr. Sleuth, their only guest in a long time, their chance to salvage their business. As new murders happen in the surrounding neighborhoods, the couple slowly begin to suspect their lodger might be the one responsible for them. What makes this retelling different though, is the fact that Mrs Bunting is, unusually for the time, the detective here. It is she who puts together the clues left by her lodger; she who begins to doubt his character; and, finally, she who decides his fate.  

Notable also is the underlying tone of the book; it is no wonder that Hitchcock focussed on the dark and foggy London streets as, even in the novel, the city is a lead character. Like all the best London mystery writing – Josephine Bell and Margery Allingham being the most obvious parallels. However, Belloc-Lowndes also manages to convey the feeling of threat that is specific to women in such a setting. She was 20 when the Whitechapel murders happened in 1888 and living in London; we know from the enormous amount of newspaper  articles, ‘penny dreadful’ broadsheets, Grand Guignol entertainments, and popular songs, that the ‘Ripper’ murders penetrated deeply into public consciousness. How, then, did she feel when walking the streets of a town where a violent murderer was at large? I think she tells us in the novel. 

The film is widely available to view online or via the British Film Institute who now own it. I would strongly urge you to read the novel; it is an early gem of a feminist mystery.