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Any experienced reader of British detective fiction approaches a new work with certain preconceptions about the character and modus operandi of the protagonist. If the particular sleuth attempting to solve the mystery between its covers does so in the capacity of a professional policeman or inspector, rather than in the role of private detective, the margins of expectation are somewhat narrowed. Clearly, someone employed in crime resolution by the state rather than by personal whim or an individual client faces more restrictions in person and procedure than the self-employed or the amateur. Although many mystery writers in the twentieth century have relied on the tweaking of the stereotypes of race, class, and gender to distinguish their police person from the ranks of his or her fellow officers, the exception seems to be the thing that proves the rule. The source, or prototype, of the stereotype, it is generally agreed, can be traced back to the very first appearance in English literature of a policeman in a positive role. In 1853, Charles Dickens introduced the Victorian reading public to the remarkable character of Inspector Bucket in Bleak House. After that, the critical literature on detective fiction assumes, all is history. The literary history of both the European and American roots of the genre has been discussed and debated at length by both scholars and mystery writers, but the historical accuracy of Bucket as representative of an emerging subculture has not been explored. By providing from his fertile imagination the urinspector, Bucket, has Dickens distorted or preserved the actual policeman of Victorian London forever?
Any irregularities in the person or performance of Inspector Bucket were most likely intentional, not inadvertent. In his work on detective fiction, A. E. Murch establishes Dickens's familiarity with the Metropolitan Police:
He was on friendly terms with several officers at Scotland Yard, and between 1850 and 1856 he wrote for Household Words a whole series of articles about the Metropolitan Police. "On Duty with Inspector Field" [the man thought to be the model for Inspector Bucket] describes a night patrol in the slums of London; "The Detective Police" reports how certain officers succeeded in capturing a gang of warehouse thieves, a clever forger, and a notorious horse-stealer known as "Tally-ho Thompson." "Three...