Asmodeus Flights: Urban Mysteries and Moving Pictures

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Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

[1] The term “mysterymania” was coined by Alfred Crowquill (pseud. of Alfred Henry Forrester) in his 1845 “Outlines of Mysteries” essay in Bentley's Miscellany, which discussed The Mysteries novels of Paris and London.

[2] De Guevara's story inspired Le Sage's 1707 Le Diable boiteaux, and Le Sage's Asmodeus was translated into English by Tobias Smollett in the mid-eighteenth century.

[3] In the first few pages of Sue's novel, when Rodolphe, impenetrably disguised as an artisan fan-painter, comes to the aid of young prostitute Fleur-de-Marie by grabbing her assailant's hand, the assailant exclaims: “But whose bit of a hand is [this] . . . It must be a woman's!”—however, Rodolphe fast proves his manliness by trouncing the assailant (Mysteries of Paris, 1906, I: 13). Later, the narrator notes Rodolphe's “beautiful” features (I: 23). Sue's original French reads: “Mais à qui donc la petite patte que je tiens là” and “Ses traits étaient régulièrement beaux, trop beaux peut-être pour un homme” (Les Mystères de Paris, 1844, 5:14).

[4] Other fictional technological inventions of the detective hero include a special seismograph which registers footsteps only in Kennedy's apartment (64) and a “vocaphone,” that receives and transmits voices through a little box (146); he also uses some actual technologies of the time, such as the telegraphone, the telautograph, and the X-ray. Fantastic technologies used by the villains includes the aforementioned fingerprint duplicator, an “electrolysis” method for activating poisoned wall-paper (102), an ultra-red “F-ray” machine that is also a “death-ray” machine (169), and assorted “quick shutter” cameras, oxygen suits, chemical bombs, suspended-animation apparatuses, etc.