Lady Audley's Secret is a sensation novel by Mary Elizabeth Braddon published on 26 May 1862. It was Braddon's most successful and well-known novel. Critic John Sutherland (1989) described the work as "the most sensationally successful of all the sensation novels". The plot centres on "accidental bigamy" which was in literary fashion in the early 1860s. The plot was summarised by literary critic Elaine Showalter (1982): "Braddon's bigamous heroine deserts her child, pushes husband number one down a well, thinks about poisoning husband number two and sets fire to a hotel in which her other male acquaintances are residing". Elements of the novel mirror themes of the real-life Constance Kent case of June 1860 which gripped the nation for years. Braddon's second 'bigamy' novel, Aurora Floyd, appeared in 1863. Braddon set the story in Ingatestone Hall, Essex, inspired by a visit there. There have been three silent film adaptations, one UK television version in 2000, and three minor stage adaptations.
Bleak House is a novel by Charles Dickens, first published as a 20-episode serial between 12 March 1852 and 12 September 1853. The novel has many characters and several subplots, and is told partly by the novel's heroine, Esther Summerson, and partly by an omniscient narrator. At the centre of Bleak House is a long-running legal case in the Court of Chancery, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, which comes about because a testator has written several conflicting wills. In a preface to the 1853 first edition, Dickens said there were many actual precedents for his fictional case. One such was probably Thellusson v Woodford, in which a will read in 1797 was contested and not determined until 1859. Though many in the legal profession criticised Dickens's satire as exaggerated, Bleak House helped support a judicial reform movement that culminated in the enactment of legal reform in the 1870s.
Patrick George Considine is an English actor, director, and screenwriter. He is known for playing antiheros in independent films. He has received two British Academy Film Awards, three Evening Standard British Film Awards, British Independent Film Awards and a Silver Lion for Best Short Film at the 2007 Venice Film Festival.
Timothy Peter Pigott-Smith, was an English film and television actor and author. He was best known for his leading role as Ronald Merrick in the television drama series The Jewel in the Crown, for which he won the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor in 1985. Other noted TV roles included roles in The Chief, Midsomer Murders, The Vice, The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, King Charles III and two Doctor Who stories. Pigott-Smith appeared in many notable films, including Clash of the Titans (1981), Gangs of New York (2002), Johnny English (2003), Alexander (2004), V for Vendetta (2005), Quantum of Solace (2008), Red 2 (2013) and Jupiter Ascending (2015).
Sir Richard Mayne KCB was a barrister and the joint first Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, the head of the London Metropolitan Police (1829–1868). With an incumbency of 39 years, he was also the longest-serving Commissioner in the force's history, as well as the youngest on his appointment.
Man in the Attic is a 1953 mystery film directed by Hugo Fregonese. It was released in the United States on December 23 by Twentieth Century Fox. The movie is based on the 1913 novel The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes, which fictionalizes the Jack the Ripper killings, and was previously filmed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1927, by Maurice Elvey in 1932, by John Brahm in 1944, and subsequently by David Ondaatje in 2009.
John Francis Regis Toomey was an American film and television actor.
Ferdy Mayne or Ferdie Mayne was a German-British stage and screen actor. Born in Mainz, he emigrated to the United Kingdom in the early 1930s to escape the Nazi regime. He resided in the UK for the majority of his professional career. Working almost continuously throughout a 60-year-long career, Mayne was known as a versatile character actor, often playing suave villains and aristocratic eccentrics in films like The Fearless Vampire Killers, Where Eagles Dare, Barry Lyndon, and Benefit of the Doubt.
Constance Emily Kent (1844–1944) was an English woman who confessed to the murder of her half-brother, Francis Saville Kent, in 1860, when she was aged 16 and he aged three. The case led to high-level pronouncements that there was no longer any ancient priest-penitent privilege in England and Wales. Kent's death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, and she was released after serving twenty years. In later life, she changed her name to Ruth Emilie Kaye, became a nurse and for twenty years was matron of a nurses' home in East Maitland, New South Wales. She died at the age of 100.
The Devil to Pay! is a 1930 American pre-Code romantic drama film directed by George Fitzmaurice and starring Ronald Colman, Frederick Kerr, Myrna Loy and Loretta Young. It was written by Frederick Lonsdale and Benjamin Glazer.
William Saville-Kent was an English marine biologist and author.
Dog Altogether is a short film written and directed by Paddy Considine. The term "Dog Altogether" comes from an Irish expression that Considine's father used to use when situations got really bad. It was filmed on 22 January 2007 in Glasgow.
Kate Summerscale is an English writer and journalist. She is best known for the bestselling narrative nonfiction books The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, which was made into a television drama, The Wicked Boy and The Haunting of Alma Fielding. She has won a number of literary prizes, including the Samuel Johnson Prize for Nonfiction in 2008.
Don't Open Till Christmas is a 1984 British slasher film directed by Edmund Purdom, and starring Purdom, Alan Lake, Belinda Mayne, and Gerry Sundquist. Written by Derek Ford and Alan Birkinshaw, the film follows a mysterious killer murdering Santa Claus impersonators in London during Christmastime.
Detective Inspector Jonathan "Jack" Whicher was an English police detective. He was one of the original eight members of London's newly formed Detective Branch, which was established at Scotland Yard in 1842. During his career, Whicher earned a reputation among the finest in Europe.
Captain Samuel Meredith was the first person to be appointed to the rank of Chief Constable in the United Kingdom when he was appointed to that rank in the newly formed Wiltshire Constabulary in November 1839. This occurred after a distinguished career in the Royal Navy.
Sam Barnard is a British actor with Down syndrome who has appeared in several British television dramas and public information films.
Siobhan O'Neill is an English actress and musician born in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire. She is notable for her work in television, including Thor: The Dark World, TV sitcom Him and Her, TV sitcom Not Going Out starring Lee Mack and BBC TV medical series Holby City. Siobhan O'Neill is also the drummer for all-sister rock band Kyneska. She has recently filmed the role of the Housemaid in The Suspicions of Mr Whicher - The murder in Angel Lane, alongside Olivia Colman and Paddy Considine, directed by Christopher Menaul for Hat Trick Productions and ITV.
Calm Yourself is a 1935 American comedy film directed by George B. Seitz and written by Arthur Kober. The film stars Robert Young, Madge Evans, Betty Furness, Ralph Morgan, Nat Pendleton and Hardie Albright. The film was released on June 28, 1935, by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Sergeant Richard Cuff is a fictional character in Wilkie Collins' 1868 novel The Moonstone. He represents one of the earliest portrayals of a police detective in an English novel.
