In a New England town plagued by labor troubles, a detective searches for a murderer.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836-1907), editor of the Atlantic Monthly from 1881-1890, published a dozen or so works of fiction, in addition to much poetry and criticism. The Stillwater Tragedy features a murder mystery and a labor strike.
“The faithful potrayal of life in a manufacturing village; the distinct and vivid etchings of character; the graceful turns of fancy and humor; the simple and wholesome love affair; the naturalness, purity, and equipoise with which the story is told, all mark it as one of the best of Aldrich’s prose performances.” Louisville Courier-Journal, September 3, 1880
“The book is something much better than a novel of the familiar detective class. . . . the plot is not used as a mere framework on which to display the delicately drawn pictures by which Mr. Aldrich has long been known and admired; the incidents of the story are used not only to illustrate but to develop the characters of the chief personages. . . . The book has a symmetry of form and an evenness of texture which show the hand of the true artist.” New York Tribune, September 12, 1880
A contrasting view:
“It is all very clever, astonishingly clever. But it is a kind of cold, cynical brilliancy which in a short story may be very entertaining, but which in a novel soon palls upon one’s taste.” Scribner’s, November 1880
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