This book is a collection of great essays which discuss four brilliant and impressive investigators and detectives in literary masterpieces by Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, and Dorothy Bowers. The focus of this book is on Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Jane Marple, and Dan Pardoe. These highly intelligent, perceptive, problem-solving, resilient, and resourceful investigators are committed to examining the evidence in any situation carefully, fairly, and honestly and devoted to searching for and discovering the truth in various criminal cases, even though such heroic endeavors frequently threaten their own lives. In Chapter Seven of Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Hercule Poirot agrees to accept the case which is presented to him only if he may "go through with it to the end" and search for "all the truth." In numerous investigations Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Jane Marple, and Dan Pardoe demonstrate not only an extraordinary commitment to searching meticulously and valiantly for the whole truth but also the absolute genius to discover it.

This book is a collection of great and insightful essays which discuss heroic endeavors to save endangered heirs and estates by searching devotedly for the truth in various criminal and civil situations. This book focuses especially on important works by Arthur Conan Doyle, Theodor Storm, Frances Hodgson Burnett, and Agatha Christie, while also discussing works by other important European authors. In each of these literary masterpieces the landowner or heir is emotionally and physically endangered and his or her house and estate imperiled by one or more individuals from within his or her own family or from within the sphere of influence of the family. In these works by Arthur Conan Doyle, Theodor Storm, Frances Hodgson Burnett, and Agatha Christie there is a valiant attempt by such individuals as Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, Mary Lennox, Hercule Poirot, and others to save the landowners and heirs who are endangered and the estates which are threatened by thoroughly investigating their situations and by searching meticulously for the truth. These protagonists share and exemplify the "passion for getting at the truth" which Hercule Poirot in Agatha Christie's Murder in Three Acts declares is the primary motivating force and inspiration for his criminal investigations.

The present volume comprises a collection of wonderful and insightful essays exploring the theme of sanctuaries in Washington Irving's The Sketch Book. These are sanctuaries of natural beauty, peacefulness, architectural splendor, and mythical vitality. In addition, the book presents a short history of sanctuaries in nineteenth-century American and European literature.

Magnificent Houses in Twentieth Century European Literature is a collection of great and imaginative essays that explore the theme of magnificent and aesthetically interesting houses in twentieth century European literature. It focuses especially on important works by Thomas Mann, Evelyn Waugh, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Siegfried Lenz, while also discussing other significant houses in modern European literature.