Loveday Brooke Timeline | COVE

A selection of events from the life of Catherine Louisa Pirkis and from the era that provide context for Loveday Brooke.

Timeline

Table of Events

Date	Event	Created by
6 Oct 1839	Birth of Catherine Louisa Lyne On 6 October 1839, Catherine Louisa Lyne was born to Lewis Stephens Lyne and his wife, Susan (Dixon) Lyne. Lyne's father was an accountant and comptroller for the Inland Revenue. Her grandfather was Reverend Richard Lyne, master of a grammar school at Liskeard, Cornwall, and author of The Latin Primer (1794).	Kari Aakre
1 May 1851 to 15 Oct 1851	The Great Exhibition In 1851, the Great Exhibition was held in the Crystal Palace. The exhibition of skills such as collecting, representing, observing, and building showcases Victorians' encyclopedic notion of society, which contributed to the interest in detective fiction.	Kari Aakre
12 Mar 1852 to 12 Sep 1853	Publication of Bleak House Between March 1852 and September 1853, Charles Dickens serialized Bleak House, which features prominently the police detective, Mr. Bucket. Just two years earlier, Dickens had written articles for Household Words about his time spent trailing London police detectives.	Kari Aakre
Nov 1859 to Apr 1860	Publication of the first sensation novel In 1859, Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White launches the genre of the sensation novel, popular in the 1860s. Later specimens of the genre include Collins’ Moonstone.	Kari Aakre
1861 to 1861	First fictional female detective The frst female detective appears in W. S. Hayward’s Revelations of a Lady Detective (1861). Other female detectives graced the pages of Andrew Forrester Jr.’s The Female Detective (1864), Clarence Rook’s The Stir Outside the Café Royal (1898), Beatrice Heron-Maxwell’s The Adventures of a Lady Pearlbroker (1899), Grant Allen’s Miss Cayley’s Adventures (1898) and Hilda Wade (1899). However, female patrol officers were not allowed in the Metropolitan police force until 1919.	Kari Aakre
26 May 1862	Publication of Lady Audley's Secret On May 26, 1862, Mary Elizabeth Braddon published Lady Audley’s Secret, inspired by the 1860 Road Hill murders and the detective work of Jack Whicher. The murderer did not confess until 1865, providing sensational material for Braddon. Dickens had previously covered Whicher’s work in his 1850 Household Words articles about police detectives.	Kari Aakre
1866 to 1866	Publication of first police detective novel In 1866, Emile Gaboriau’s L’Affair Lerouge was published. As the first police detective novel, L’Affair Lerouge features Lecoq as lead detective, inspired by Vidocq.	Kari Aakre
1870 to 1870	Married Women's Property Act of 1870 Passed in 1870, the Married Women’s Property Act allowed women to own the money they earned and inherit property. Just 13 years earlier, in 1857, the Matrimonial Causes Act abolished ecclesiastical jurisdiction over divorce cases. Divorce could be tried by secular authorities in civil court.	Kari Aakre
19 Sep 1872	Marriage of Lyne and Pirkis On 19 September 1872, Catherine Louisa Lyne married Frederick Edward Pirkis in St Luke’s Church, Chelsea. She was 32; he was 35. He served as fleet-paymaster for the English Royal Navy. They moved frequently. In 1873, their daughter, Norah Catherine Lyne Pirkis, was born in Putney, Surrey. In 1876, their son, Frederick Chandos Lyne Pirkis, was born in Brussels, Belgium.	Kari Aakre
1877	Publication of Pirkis' first novel In 1877, Catherine Louisa Pirkis' first book, Disappeared from Her Home: A Novel, was published by Remington in 1 volume.	Kari Aakre
1878	Pirkis publishes In a World of His Own In 1878, Pirkis’ In a World of His Own was published by Remington in 3 volumes. Pirkis published almost a book a year until 1889, including A Very Opal (1880), Trooping with Crows (1880), Wanted, an Heir (1881), Saint and Sibyl: A Story of Old Kew (1882), Di Fawcett: One Year of her Life (1883), Judith Wynne: A Novel (1884), and Lady Lovelace: A Novel (1885), A Dateless Bargain (1887), The Road from Ruin (1888), and At the Moment of Victory: A Novel (1889). Then she published A Red Sister: A Story of Three Days and Three Months (1891).	Kari Aakre
1886 to 1887	Banner year for detective fiction In 1886 and 1887, Fergus Hume’s Mystery of a Hansom Cab, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “Study in Scarlet” were published, marking a proliferation of interest in the detective genre.	Kari Aakre
Aug 1888 to Nov 1888	Jack the Ripper murders Between August and November of 1888, "Jack the Ripper" killed at least five women in Whitechapel, London. The sensational press coverage of the murders peaked the public's appetite for detective fiction.	Kari Aakre
1890	Lippincott's solicited "Sign of the Four" and The Picture of Dorian Gray In 1890, Lippincott's Monthly Magazine solicited the publication of Doyle’s “Sign of the Four” and Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray.	Kari Aakre
1891	Foundation of the British National Canine Defense League In 1891, Pirkis co-founded the British National Canine Defense League (now known as Dogs Trust) with her husband and Lady Gertrude Georgina Stock (pseudonym, George Douglas).	Kari Aakre
1893 to 1903	Publication of Sorceress of the Strand L.T. Meade serialized Sorceress of the Strand in the Strand, 1893–1903.	Kari Aakre
Feb 1893 to Jul 1893	Publication of the Experiences of Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective From February to July 1893, Pirkis’ most famous novel, The Experiences of Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective, was serialized in Ludgate Monthly in “casebook format.” The final installment of the series "Missing!" was published in February 1894. In 1894, Loveday Brooke was published in one volume by Hutchinson.	Kari Aakre
Dec 1893	Death of Sherlock Holmes In December 1893, Doyle killed off Sherlock Holmes in “The Final Problem" and received public outcry.	Kari Aakre
4 Oct 1910	Death of Pirkis On October 4, 1910, Catherine Louisa Pirkis died at 29 Redcliffe Square, Middlesex, leaving an estate of approximately £17,000. She is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery in London.	Kari Aakre