Notes
Preface
1 – An 1876 lease for 6, Euston Square, in the same terrace, contains wonderfully evocative descriptions. The original document is held at the London Metropolitan Archives. Ref: 0/462/011
2 – The interview appeared on 5 January 1879. A reproduction of it can be found (among other places) at www.marxists.org/archive/marx/bio/media/marx/
Chapter 1
1 – Severin (sometimes spelled ‘Sewerin’) Bastendorff’s naturalisation certificate is at the National Archives. Reference HO 334/8/2587
Chapter 2
1 – These and other minute details of the discovery in the cellar and the movements of all parties concerned emerged on the first day of the inquest two weeks later. All national (and, indeed, local) newspapers reported on the proceedings, with very slight variations of quotes. A report can be found in The Times, 22 May 1879.
2 – As above
3 – As above
4 – As above
5 – As above
6 – As above
7 – As above
8 – As above
9 – The account of the medical examination was reported in The Times on 22 May 1879
10 – As above
11 – As above
Chapter 3
1 – As reported in the North London News, 17 May 1873
2 – As reported in Reynolds Paper, 23 December 1877
3 – As above
Chapter 5
1 – Correspondents from a variety of newspapers across the country were sent to Bideford. There were pooled reports too. This featured in Dublin newspaper The Advertiser on 15 May 1879.
2 – As above
3 – Detail featured in the Western Morning News, 15 May 1879
4 – Details relayed by the Press Association to all newspapers, 16 May 1879
5 – Detail featured in Birmingham Daily Post, 16 May 1879
6 – Details relayed via telegram to all newspapers by the Press Association, 16 May 1879
7 – Report of inquest proceedings from The Times, 17 May 1879
8 – As above
9 – As above
10 – As above
11 – As above
12 – As above
13 – As above
14 – As above
15 – As above
16 – As above
17 – The further mortuary details as reported in The Times, 17 May 1879
18 – As above
19 – As reported in Reynolds News, 17 May 1879
20 – As above
21 – Severin Bastendorff, as relayed to a correspondent from the Dundee Courier, 17 May 1879
22 – As above
23 – As above
Chapter 6
1 – From ‘The Adventures of Philip on His Way Through the World: Shewing Who Robbed Him, Who Helped Him and Who Passed Him By’ by William Makepeace Thackeray, first published in serial form in Cornhill magazine, 1861–62
2 – Paul Kelver by Jerome K Jerome (Hutchinson and Co., 1902)
3 – The Nether World by George Gissing (Smith, Elder, 1889)
Chapter 7
1 – The Morning Post, 17 May 1879
2 – As above
3 – The Morning Post, 19 May 1879
Chapter 8
1 – London Evening Standard, 19 May 1879
2 – As above
3 – ‘Our Canterbury Correspondent Writes’ in the London Evening Standard, 19 May 1879
4 – As above
5 – As above
6 – As above
7 – ‘A Brighton correspondent says …’ The intelligence sent via telegram and published in the London Evening Standard, 20 May 1879
8 – As above
9 – London Evening Standard, 21 May 1879
Chapter 9
1 – Sometimes known as Napoleon’s Oraculum and The Book of Dreams or Dream-Book, this text, said by eager publishers to have been by Napoleon’s side constantly, was first translated into English in 1822, and subsequently went through many reprints and inspired many fortune-telling rivals. The text itself featured hundreds of closely typed prognostications, many of which now have the distinct feel of fortune cookies.
2 – As above
Chapter 10
1 – As reported in the London Evening Standard, as well as other newspapers around the country, 24 May 1879
2 – As above
3 – As above
4 – As above
5 – As reported in the Daily News, 27 May 1879. In contrast to the Standard’s reporter finding Hannah Dobbs stout, the News correspondent was adamant that she was ‘tall, good-looking’.
6 – As above
7 – As above
8 – As above
9 – As reported in The Times, 21 June 1879
Chapter 11
1 – As compiled in Luxembourg: Land of Legends by W.J. Taylor Whitehead (Constable, 1951)
2 – From Severin Bastendorff’s own written testimony, reproduced later by the Daily Telegraph on 20 December 1879
3 – As above
4 – In the 1870s, the front page of each day’s edition of The Times carried not news or photographs, but hundreds of small classified advertisements arranged by area of interest. The furniture advertisements were profuse.
5 – As above
6 – Henry Mayhew writing for the Morning Chronicle and published in London Labour and London Poor, Vol. 3 (Giffin Bohn, 1861)
7 – As described in Little Germany: Exile and Asylum in Victorian England by Rosemary Ashton (Oxford University Press, 1986)
Chapter 13
1 – As reported in numerous newspapers, including the London Evening Standard on 4 June 1879, and the Illustrated Police News. As with previous court reports, there are some variations; this chapter presents a synthesis of these reports.
2 – As above
3 – As reported by the Illustrated Police News, a few days later, on 14 July 1879
Chapter 14
1 – Grand Guignol was a turn-of-the-century French theatre genre specialising in baroque depictions of murder and violence, from dismemberments to scalping
2 – Editorial from The Spectator, 12 July 1879
3 – As above
4 – The Rise and Fall of the Victorian Servant by Pamela Horn (Gill and Macmillan, 1975)
5 – As above
6 – Victorian Women’s Magazines – An Anthology, edited by Margaret Beetham and Kay Boardman (Manchester University Press, 2001)
7 – As above
Chapter 15
1 – The trial was reported in numerous newspapers; this chapter draws chiefly on the account given in The Times, 3 July 1879
2 – As above
3 – As above
4 – As above
Chapter 16
1 – As with the previous day’s proceedings, the case was comprehensively covered in a wide variety of publications; and again, this chapter draws chiefly on the account given in The Times, 4 July 1879
2 – As above
3 – As above
4 – As above
5 – As above
6 – As above
7 – As above
8 – As above
Chapter 17
1 – This detail, together with a brief account of her life in what was then called Devonshire, appeared in the opening section of ‘Hannah Dobbs’ – a pamphlet published by George Purkess in September 1879. The autobiographical pamphlet, for which Hannah Dobbs received payment, was ghostwritten and its true author or authors are not named. It is available to read at The British Newspaper Archive at the British Library Reading Rooms, St Pancras, and at Boston Spa.
2 – Victorian Womens’ Magazines, as above
3 – The Rise and Fall of the Victorian Servant, as above
4 – The phrase is from Tess of the D’Urbevilles by Thomas Hardy
5 – From the pamphlet ‘Hannah Dobbs’, in the first section of which she sketched out her early life and career
6 – As above
7 – As above
Chapter 18
1 – Details from the pamphlet ‘Hannah Dobbs’, as above
2 – As above
3 – As reported in The Era, October 1875
Chapter 19
1 – There is a file in the National Archives on the case chiefly composed of correspondence between various police departments. It is under the reference HO 144/41/8411
2 – From the pamphlet ‘Hannah Dobbs’, which although relatively short, was split into several sections. This was from the second, headlined ‘The History of Miss Hacker while in Euston Square’.
3 – As above. Throughout the course of the mystery, Hannah Dobbs never gave a consistent account of the miscarriage; at one point, it was darkly alleged in a hint that Severin Bastendorff was partly responsible – that he ‘gave her something’.
4 – As above. The hyper-focused nature of her memories of Matilda Hacker and the details of ordinary domestic life are in fascinating contrast to the ambiguity that is to follow.
5 – As above
Chapter 20
1 – From the pamphlet ‘Hannah Dobbs’, as above. It was the point in the narrative which Scotland Yard knew would have to be investigated with some speed, despite Dobbs subsequently refusing to answer any straightforward questions on the matter.
2 – From the back page of the pamphlet ‘Hannah Dobbs’, placed directly beneath the reproduction of her signature
Chapter 21
1 – This delightfully cynical and true sentiment – voiced in the Kerry Evening Post, 1 October 1879
2 – As reported in The Morning Chronicle, 5 October 1879
3 – The response from Hannah Dobbs, issued through her solicitor based in Grays Inn Square, was reported on the same day
4 – The Morning Chronicle, 5 October 1879
5 – The Morning Chronicle, 5 October 1879
6 – London Evening Standard, 11 October 1879
Chapter 22
1 – The Times gave a full report of the hearing on 1 November 1879
2 – As above
3 – As above
Chapter 23
1 – As reported in The Times, 4 December 1879
2 – The unexpurgated transcript – The Times moderated much of Dobbs’ sensational evidence, redacting and substituting much of her explicit language with the term ‘improprieties’ – is available at www.oldbaileyonline.org which has many historical trials
3 – As reported in The Times, 5 December 5, 1879
4 – As above
5 – As above. The legal wranglings concerning the need for Peter Bastendorff to be either present or absent from the court had previously proceeded at some length.
Chapter 24
1 – The Times’ leader was interestingly reproduced by The North Devon Journal on 11 December 1879; the local interest was of course intense
2 – London Evening Standard, 18 December 1879
3 – Daily Telegraph, 20 December 1879
4 – Victorian Prison Lives by Philip Priestley (Methuen 1985)
5 – As above
6 – Daily Telegraph, 20 December 1879
7 – Victorian Prison Lives, as above
8 – As above
Chapter 25
1 – Reported in the Pall Mall Gazette, 27 January 1881
2 – As above
3 – Census details to be found at the London Metropolitan Archives; they are also available via subscription to ancestry.co.uk
4 – Quoted in Psychiatry for the Poor by Richard Hunter and Ida MacAlpine (Dawsons of Pall Mall, 1974)
5 – As displayed in the London Evening Standard on 3 October 1885
6 – Reported at his court case by the London Evening Standard, 13 January 1886
7 – As above
8 – As reported, among other newspapers, by the Yorkshire Gazette, 28 May 1887
9 – Severin Bastendorff’s records are held in the London Metropolitan Archives. It is necessary to visit the site to see them. Nor are they filed directly under his name; rather, the Archives hold files of ledgers from the former Colney Hatch hospital, handwritten and kept alphabetically by patient name, year by year.
10 – As above
11 – As above
Chapter 26
1 – As reported in Reynolds Newspaper, 3 April 1881
Chapter 27
1 – First published in 1903, and serialised across the country for several years afterwards, in newspapers such as the Derbyshire Courier.
2 – Rooms of Mystery by Elliott O’Donnell (Philip Allan and Co., 1931)
3 – The Canterbury Belles, staged by The Really Promising Company in 2017