Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
helped him to introduce the dramatically necessary ups and downs of the
plot. Yet the story remains within its medieval models, as the miserable
seeker keeps on with his unsuccessful work until his death at the very
end.
With his preference for crime thrillers and his own admirable way of
interlocking stories with each other, 'al-chemists' figure prominently in
many novels of Wilkie Collins. In
Jezebel's Daughter
(1880; chap.
XV),
26
the plot remains basically within the medieval scope, like that of
Balzac's
La Recherche
. Placed in early nineteenth-century Germany at
the University of Würzburg, the physician and professor of chemistry Dr.
Fontaine is successfully tempted by a Hungarian chemist, who pretends
to be able to make gold, diamonds, and the philosophers' stone. The
usual process of addiction and obsession follows, such that Fontaine ru-
ins his family financially and morally, which Collins relates in heart-
rending letters written by Fontaine's wife, Jezebel. However, in
The
Haunted Hotel
(1879),
27
Collins went one step further than Balzac and
medieval writers. The final three chapters present, as one partial solution
of that intricate crime thriller, a different 'al-chemist' story set in the
1860s. Here the 'al-chemist' is a Baron “with a single-minded devotion
to the science of experimental chemistry” who has already spent all his
money on his costly experiments. In need of further money for his 'final'
experiment, he first marries his sister (or lover and companion) to a rich
English nobleman. When this financial resource runs dry, the two of
them decide to kill the Englishman in order to get his life insurance pre-
miums. To that end, they first replace him with his butler, who is inci-
dentally dying of bronchitis and, being in a foreign country, let a local
doctor write a death certificate. Afterwards, they murder the Englishman,
and the 'al-chemist' uses his chemical skills for anaesthetizing (chloro-
form), killing (poison), and dissolving the remains (acids). Collins went
beyond the familiar medieval plot in furnishing his 'al-chemist' with
much more criminal energy and with many criminal means borrowed
from contemporary chemistry.
26
First published London: Chatto & Windus, 1880, 3 vols. Despite the abundance of al-
chemists in Collins's works, reference to this is rare in the secondary literature; for an
exception, see Baldick 1987, pp. 184-5.
27
First published London: Chatto & Windus, 1879, 2 vols.
