7.6 /10 1 Votes
Language English Pages 335 pp (1st US) OCLC 16415074 | 3.8/5 Goodreads Publication date 1951 Originally published 1951 Country United Kingdom Series Gideon Fell | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Publisher Hamish Hamilton (UK) & Harper (USA) Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback) ISBN 0-88184-328-8 (Carroll & Graf paperback edition, 1987) Genres Mystery, Detective fiction, Historical Fiction Similar Fire - Burn!, The Nine Wrong Answers, The House at Satan's Elbow, Patrick Butler for the Defen, The Bride of Newgate | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Devil in Velvet, first published in 1951, is a detective story by John Dickson Carr. This novel is both a mystery and a historical novel, with elements of the supernatural.
Contents
Plot summary
Cambridge Professor of history Nicholas Fenton, in the England of 1925, makes a bargain with the devil and is sent back in time to Restoration London in 1675 to solve a murder that is about to take place, in the body of Sir Nick Fenton. Fenton soon finds himself in love with the intended victim, Sir Nick's wife Lydia, and resolves to alter the course of history by preventing her murder. Fenton's mastery of 20th century swordsmanship makes him a fearsome antagonist in 1675, so much so that he becomes known as "the devil in velvet". Also involved in the action is a woman who has also sold her soul to the devil and travelled back in time, and Fenton finds himself torn between the two women. He must not only solve the approaching murder before it happens, but come to terms with Sir Nick's romantic and political entanglements—and even void his deal with the devil.
Reception
Boucher and McComas lauded The Devil In Velvet as an "unbelievably perfect fusion of time travel and diabolism with historical romance and pure detection," listing it among the best imaginative novels of 1951.