d by Conan Doyle and other writers of the detective story.
The deliberate, careful analysis of his mode of procedure, so
characteristic of his mind and temper, is full of interest:

"I bent myself to the conception of a series of
adventures of flight and pursuit: the fugitive in
perpetual apprehension of being overwhelmed with the
worst calamities and the pursuer by his ingenuity and
resources keeping the victim in a state of the most
fearful alarm. This was the project of my third volume.
I was next called upon to conceive a dramatic and
impressive situation adequate to account for the
impulse that the pursuer should feel incessantly to
alarm and harass his victim, with an inextinguishable
resolution never to allow him the least interval of
peace and security. This I apprehended could best be
effected by a secret murder, to the investigation of
which the innocent victim should be impelled by an
unconquerable spirit of curiosity. The murderer would
thus have a sufficient motive to persecute the unhappy
discoverer that he might deprive him of peace,
character and credit, and have him for ever in his
power. This constituted the outline of my second
volume... To account for the fearful events of the
third it was necessary that the pursuer should be
invested with every advantage of fortune, with a
resolution that nothing could defeat or baffle and with
extraordinary resources of intellect. Nor could my
purpose of giving an overpowering interest to my tale
be answered without his appearing to have been
originally endowed with a mighty store of amiable
dispositions and virtues, so that his being driven to
the first act of murder should be judged worthy of the
deepest regret, and should be seen in some measure to
have arisen out of his virtues themselves. It was
necessary to make him ... the tenant of an atmosphere
of romance, so that every reader should feel prompted
almost to worship him for his high qualities. Here were
ample materials for a first volume."[77]

Godwin hoped that an "entire unity of plot" would be the
infallible result of this ingenious method of constructing his
story, and only wrote in a high state of excitement when the
"afflatus" was upon him. So far as we may judge from his
description, he seems to have realised his story fi