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Audiobook editionPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
A respected man lies dead behind a door fastened from within. How can there be a murderer?
In London's working-class district of Bow, Mrs. Drabdump cannot wake her lodger, Arthur Constant. When the door is forced, the kind, public-spirited man is found dead, his throat wounded. The room is locked from the inside. Israel Zangwill builds The Big Bow Mystery around this stubborn puzzle: no one seems able to enter or leave, yet someone must account for the death.
Retired detective Mr. Grodman trusts his reputation and judgment. Inspector Edward Wimp relies on procedure and wants to prove himself against his rival. As suspicion gathers around labour leader Tom Mortlake, who knows Constant through their shared causes, the public hungers for news. Beneath the search for a murderer lies another question: what makes people decide that someone is guilty?
What you’ll discover
- An impossible room Test your judgment against a murder puzzle that grows stranger under close examination.
- Two rival detectives Follow Grodman's confidence and Wimp's careful procedure as each pursues the case.
- A sharp-eyed landlady Meet Mrs. Drabdump, whose watchful eye and ready words bring Bow into focus.
- Suspicion and the crowd Consider how a hunger for answers shapes judgments about guilt and justice.
- A puzzle with wit Enjoy dry humour and a light, ironic voice alongside a fair detective puzzle.
Who will love it
Readers who love a locked-room puzzle with fair clues, and who enjoy sharp comic portraits, Victorian London streets and courtroom drama.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- An ordinary morning becomes a mystery
- The facts rule out both explanations
- The public supplies its own answers
- Information comes with a price
- Politeness hides a contest between detectives
- A public arrest becomes a battle
- Belief can look like evidence
- Every confident explanation deserves testing
Who’s who
- Mrs. DrabdumpA gloomy widow who rents out rooms at 11 Glover Street and expects every day to end badly, until the morning she cannot wake her lodger.
- Arthur ConstantA rich young university man who lives among the poor of Bow and gives his time and money to the labor cause.
- Tom MortlakeA former compositor turned famous labor leader and orator, who lodges in the same house and keeps troubles of his own hidden.
- George GrodmanA retired detective and landlord who lives across the street and wants above all to see his clever rival Wimp fail.
- Edward WimpA polished young Scotland Yard detective who builds ingenious theories and wants the glory of solving the Bow Mystery.
- Denzil CantercotA long-haired poet who writes for hire, owes rent, loves the Beautiful, and sells scraps of information to anyone who will pay.
- Peter CrowlA cobbler and street-corner freethinker who calls himself a plain man and stands loyally by his friend Mortlake.
- Jessie DymondA talented dressmaker engaged to Mortlake, whose disappearance in November becomes one of the book's deepest puzzles.
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The Big Bow Mystery
by Israel Zangwill · 1892
A lodger lies dead behind a bolted door in Bow, and no one could have got in or out.
Medium level2–5 hours to read20 languages
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“The essential condition of a good mystery is that the reader should be able and unable to solve it”
In short
Picture a freezing December morning in the east of London, with fog pressed against every window. A landlady named Mrs. Drabdump wakes late and knocks on her lodger's door.
The Big Bow Mystery at a glance
- Reading time
- About 2 h 55 min2 h 15 min fast, 3 h 25 min slow
- Length
- 41,100 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1892by Israel Zangwill
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A foggy morning and a door that will not open
The story opens on a freezing December morning in Bow. Fog lies over the whole city. Mrs. Drabdump, a gloomy widow who lets rooms in Glover Street, hears St. Dunstan’s bells chime a quarter to seven and realizes she has overslept. She has overslept by half an hour. Her lodger Arthur Constant asked to be woken early for a meeting of tram workers.
Constant is a young, rich university man who has chosen to live like a working man. Her other lodger, the labor leader Tom Mortlake, left before dawn. She knocks, she calls, and she slides a telegram under the door. Nothing stirs. She tries the handle and finds the door locked, and she runs across the street to the one man she trusts.
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Details
- First published
- 1892
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 3 h 15 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Zangwill, Israel. The Big Bow Mystery. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-big-bow-mystery.
Zangwill, I. (2026). The big Bow mystery. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-big-bow-mystery (Original work published 1892)
Zangwill, Israel. The Big Bow Mystery. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-big-bow-mystery.
@book{zangwill2026big,
author = {Zangwill, Israel},
title = {The Big Bow Mystery},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-big-bow-mystery},
note = {First published 1892}
}
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What is The Big Bow Mystery about?
A young philanthropist is found dead with his throat cut in a locked and bolted bedroom in Bow, East London. With no weapon and no way in, an inquest, the press and two rival detectives try to explain it.
Who wrote The Big Bow Mystery and when?
Israel Zangwill wrote it for the London evening paper The Star as a serial. His preface bears the date September 1895 and says the book was written about four years earlier.
What is a locked-room mystery?
It is a crime story in which a death takes place in a sealed space, so the culprit seems unable to have entered or left. The puzzle is how it was done, and this book plays the form for humor and suspense.
The author
Israel Zangwill
1864–1926 · British novelist and playwright
Israel Zangwill was a British author born in London in 1864. He wrote novels, plays, and essays. His books include The Big Bow Mystery (1892) and Italian Fantasies (1910). He supported Zionism and later Jewish territorialism. He lived in England and died in Midhurst, Sussex, in 1926.
“The essential condition of a good mystery is that the reader should be able and unable to solve it”
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