The Dons and Mr Dickens: The Strange Case of the Oxford Christmas Plot

New York: St. Martin's Minotaur. Fine in Near Fine dust jacket. 2000. First Edition. Hardcover. Protected in a removable Brodart cover.. 244 pages. Another of Wilkie Collins's "secret journals"-exciting accounts of his crime solving adventures with Charles Dickens-has been "found and edited" by William J. Palmer.The Dons and Mr. Dickens tells a fascinating story of political intrigue and a secret society at one of England's most distinguished institutions, Oxford University.On a dank and dreary November evening, Inspector William Field summons Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens to a crime scene in London's notorious Chinese opium district.When the two arrive in the seedy neighborhood, they learn that a man has been murdered-and the victim is none other than an Oxford history don.Eager to escape the drudgery of a London winter, the two amateur detectives willingly accept Inspector Field's orders to travel on the new railway line to Oxford, where Collins was once a student, to conduct an undercover investigation.Once in Oxford, they enlist the help of Collins's old schoolmate, Charles Dodgson, a brilliant mind on the verge of becoming the youngest don in Oxford's history.Together, they encounter a complex conspiracy punctuated by murder, political radicalism, and revenge.Atmospheric and packed with authentic period detail, The Dons and Mr. Dickens is sure to delight fans of Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens and lovers of all things Victorian. .