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Glossary and Character Taxonomy  Breakdown by Country of Origin   Bibliography   Table of Contents    The Best of the Encyclopedia

Wilbur, Keightley. Keightley Wilbur was created by “Frank Danby,” the pseudonym of Julia Frankau, and appeared in nine short stories which were collected in The Story Behind the Verdict (1915).

Keightley Wilbur is a Killer Vigilante. He is a rich, smart, English plutocrat who lives with his mother, with whom he maintains an especially close relationship. Wilbur is a playwright, sociologist, and practicing occultist who collects art and is known to the haut ton. He is given to vanity, epigrams, and wit, and is a thorough-going misanthrope. After murdering a guest at one of his parties (the guest was rude to a woman Wilbur liked), Wilber interests himself in crimes and begins solving them. He calls himself a “deus ex machina” who sends criminals to their doom.

* I'm including the Keightley Wilbur stories in the Best of the Encyclopedia list because they are well-written. I won't say that Julia Frankau is Oscar Wilde-esque, but the Wilbur stories are Wildean spins on the upper-class Killer Vigilante story that had a brief heyday in the 1910s. The stories are genuinely amusing, Wilbur is an enjoyable misanthrope (his wit and epigrams make up for a lot), and Wilbur's victims are rude enough or evil enough to deserve what Wilbur does to them. Recommended. 

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