Dorcas Dene, Detective and its 1898 sequel, Dorcas Dene, Detective [sic], were written by George R. Sims. Sims (1847-1922) was a successful and prolific writer. He was a reporter, novelist, and dramatist who gained fame for his journalism on social problems, including child abuse and the conditions of the slums of London.

Dorcas Lester was a successful stage actress. Originally she had hoped for a more respectable career, but her father died unexpectedly, leaving Dorcas and her mother with large bills, and so Dorcas took to the stage to pay them off. However, Dorcas's husband, the painter Paul Dene, was struck blind by an illness, which forced her to leave the stage and find a job which would pay her enough to support her and pay for her husband's medicine and treatments. The Denes’ next door neighbor, a retired superintendent of police turned consulting detective, used her on one case, and she proved so capable at the job that he took her on as a partner. When he retired he sent her all of his customers, and she became an independent consulting detective. She is good at it, becoming known as "the famous lady detective." She is well-known and respected by the lawyers and policemen who call on her when a case can't otherwise be solved. She has even been consulted by the head of the “French detective police” on certain delicate investigations, such as one involving the son of one of the noblest houses in France. She is assisted by Saxon, the narrator of the stories. He is a playwright who gave her some parts while she was still acting and later, when she began detecting, became first her friend and then her Watson.

Dene is a consulting detective in the Holmes style (see: The Sherlock Holmes Mysteries). Clients come to see her at her house, even at late and unladylike hours. While active on a case she is away from home for days or even weeks on end. While on the job she uses disguises, asks questions of anyone who might prove useful, eavesdrops, enlists herself in the service of suspects, and generally uses her skills as an actress to help her catch the criminals. She is a close observer of people and places and sees things others miss. She is modest about her own talents although she has no reason to be. She is intelligent, fearless, possessed of a good deal of sang froid, and is fearless, much more so than Saxon. Dorcas is always game for a hunt, and finds the work absorbing, but she is mortal and gets tired after weeks of investigating. She isn't infallible and makes mistake, but she readily admits to them. When a case becomes too difficult for her, or if there is a specific problem she is having trouble solving, she turns to her advisors, her “Council of Four:” Mrs. Lester, her mother-in-law, who is a bossy shrew but who has a bull-headed, common sense approach to matters which sometimes reveals points that Dorcas has overlooked; Dorcas’ blind husband Paul, who is not distracted by vision and so sees things which Dorcas overlooks; and Toddlekins, Dorcas’ bulldog, who is protective of Dorcas.

Dorcas Dene is a middle-class detective dealing with middle-class clients and middle-class crimes. The criminals are thieves and swindlers, bigamists, and in one case a man attempting to kill a woman by “alcoholic starvation.” The stories themselves are fairly standard woman detective stories, and Dorcas is a fairly standard female detective, but the characterization of Paul and Mrs. Lester is relatively well done, and there is a clear affection between Dorcas and Paul. Sims’ style in telling the stories is utilitarian. The mystery plots are adequate, and the stories are genial and quick reading, if not immortal. Dorcas’ relationship to her husband seems on the service subservient, but a close reading of the texts shows that she is aware of her role and views it with an ironic eye. And

Sims suggests that Dorcas Dene's real family results from her profession, above all through her assistance to women involved in crime by the activities of male members of their families¼while Dorcas Dene saves endangered marriages, as in The Diamond Lizard, or enables a desired marriage, as in The Helsham Mystery, she does so completely aware of the frequently distressing and potentially criminous nature of the marital institution. Dorcas Dene acts outside official institutions, marking her independence as well as indicating George Sims's animus against institutions, often expressed in his journalistic investigations of urban malaise. Dorcas Dene is unafraid of illegality so long as she facilitates justice. As her Christian name indicates, Dorcas Dene is engaged in self-realization through service to others. Sims's Dorcas Dene, Detective is therefore justifiably important as a key late-Victorian text not only about the female detective but about constructions of gender, especially of sisterhood, at the end of the nineteenth century.¹

¹ Joseph A. Kestner, Sherlock’s Sisters: The British Female Detective, 1864-1913 (Abingdon: Routledge, 2003), 106.