chas l'epine

The offspring of a profligate scoundrel and a drunken circus performer, Aleck Severn was born inside a prison’s walls after his mother stabbed his father to death. Severn shows no outward signs of inheriting his parents’ faults: a handsome, affable man about town, he is popular with his friends and beloved by his wife Marianne. But she begins to suspect her husband has a dark secret. What is he doing during those long nights alone at a remote house? And what connection could it have to the bodies of murdered women being found around London?

One of the earliest novels inspired by the Jack the Ripper murders, The Devil in a Domino (1897) received mixed reviews when originally published, with critics praising the author’s literary talent while decrying the book’s horrific contents. A work of exceeding rarity, it survives in only a handful of known copies and has not been reprinted in over a century. This new edition features an introduction by Simon Stern.

“[A] frankly horrible performance … a gruesome compound of madness and butchery, with nameless horrors in the background. No sane person could find pleasure in reading such a story … it would have been better had it not been written.” – The Literary World

“[A] peculiarly repulsive piece of writing, indicative of the low and morbid type of so-called literature which is purveyed to a half-educated constituency.” – Edinburgh Evening News

“In its diabolical horrors it recalls the ghastly series of crimes supposed to have been the work of ‘Jack the Ripper.’ Those who like to sup on sensation will find all they want in The Devil in a Domino.” – Dundee Evening Telegraph