"Lady Detective" Loveday Brooke is called upon to investigate the case of a young woman who has vanished without warning from her widowed father's house, just weeks before his intended re-marriage... Could either of her rival suitors, her maid, or even her future step-mother, hold the key to the mystery? The story begins at 00:01:18

Narrated/performed by Simon Stanhope, aka Bitesized Audio. If you enjoy this content and would like to help me keep creating, there are a few ways you can support me (and get access to exclusive content):

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Timestamps:
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:18 Missing!
01:11:41 Credits, thanks and further listening

Catherine Louisa Pirkis (1839–1910), often credited as C. L. Pirkis, was born Catherine Louisa Lyne to a middle class family in London. She became a prominent author of detective and mystery fiction in the last quarter of the 19th century, publishing 14 novels between 1877 and 1894. She is best remembered for her last published work, 'The Experiences of Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective', a short series of adventures featuring the eponymous sleuth, almost certainly the first female detective in fiction, and the first to be created by a female author. An insight into contemporary attitudes to the revolutionary nature of the character may be seen in an 1893 review in the Glasgow Herald, which, after praising Loveday's insights and detective skill, added "We are just afraid Miss Brooke is too clever in catching criminals ever to catch a husband." Almost inevitably "Miss Brooke" became known as "The female Sherlock Holmes"; she certainly shared Holmes' eye for detail and ability to see past the obvious solution to find the truth behind the crime.

'Missing!' did not form part of the original Loveday Brooke serial, which ran in the Ludgate Monthly magazine between February and July 1893. It was printed as a stand-alone piece, six months after the end of the serial, in 'The Ludgate Illustrated Magazine' in February 1894.

Rather than heralding a second series, however, 'Missing!' proved to be Loveday's swansong; indeed, as far as I can ascertain it was the last work Pirkis produced as an author of fiction – in 1894 she gave up writing in order to focus on campaigning for animal rights. She co-founded, with her husband Frederick Edward Pirkis and some like-minded friends, the British National Canine Defence League, which still exists in the UK today under the name 'The Dogs Trust'. In light of that, it's interesting to note that a dog features incidentally in this story, and that Pirkis uses the attitude of several players in the narrative towards the dog to give us insights into their character...

'Missing!' was added to the previous six stories in the series as the last chapter of 'The Experiences of Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective' when it was subsequently published in book form by Hutchinson in 1894.

Catherine Louisa Pirkis died after a long illness in October 1910, just two days before her husband also died; they were survived by their two children.

The title card shows a detail from 'At the Park Gate', an 1878 painting by the English painter John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836–1893).

Recording © Bitesized Audio 2024