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The Case of the Revolutionist's Daughter

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Eleanor Marx has disappeared. In this engrossing novel, we follow Sherlock Holmes as he tackles his most difficult case. He must find Karl Marx's favorite daughter and return her to the house of her father. At the behest of Frederick Engels, Holmes undertakes the search for Eleanor that leads him into a world he has never encountered before, the fascinating Bohemian intellectual world of London in 1881. With his trusted friend Dr. Watson in tow, Holmes traces Eleanor's trail from the dark archives of the British Museum library to Klemscott House, where the socialists of the day meet. Along the way he encounters such laminates of the period as George Bernard Shaw, Beatrice Potter, and William Morris as they debate art and politics. Are the sins of the father visited upon the children? As Watson notes of Eleanor, "To look at her is to be reminded of Marx in his youth-eyes alert and poetic, her spirit ardent and self-sacrificing, her intelligence extraordinary." But in what other ways does she resemble her father, and has her life been shaped by his? As Holmes gathers the evidence and follows the path of our heroine, it soon becomes clear to him that Eleanor Marx's fate, and the outcome of this mystery, may have been determined long ago by her father's philosophical stance and his very human failings. Eleanor is animated by her strong commitment to social justice, her idealism and love of humanity. Yet Watson senses "a premonition of...a child raised on fairy tales who would find herself inexorably impelled to disaster." Will this prove to be the case? Because of the personal and political ramifications of this case, Watson would not allow his account of this early but significant episode in the career of Sherlock Holmes to be published before this time. But it is here that Sherlock Holmes first confronts the evil genius of Dr. Robert Owen Mortiarty. For Holmes, it is the beginning of a lifelong battle of wills. This compelling novel describes their first encounter, and the penetrating insight and informed intuition Holmes brings to this case serves him, and the reader, well.
Lewis S. Feuer is professor of sociology and government at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He is also the author of Marx and the Intellectuals and The Conflict of Generations, among other works.
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