Uncaptioned first page of fifteenth instalment: "returning home, I found a note from Mrs. Ashleigh" (Chapters 36-38)

John McLenan

1861

Wood engraving

10.5 cm. by 6 cm. (4 ⅛ inches by 2 ⅜ inches)

Bulwer-Lytton's A Strange Story

Harper's Weekly 5 (2 November 1861): 734.

Scanned image and caption by Philip V. Allingham.

[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Passage Anticipated: Disturbing News of Lilian Ashleigh

All my thoughts were, however, diverted to channels of far deeper interest even than those in which my mind had of late been so tumultuously whirled along, when, on returning home, I found a note from Mrs. Ashleigh. She and Lilian had just come back to L —, sooner than she had led me to anticipate. Lilian had not seemed quite well the last day or two, and had been anxious to return. [Chapter XXXVI, p. 734]

Commentary: The Mysterious Murder of Sir Philip Derval and Its Aftermath

The youthful, well-dressed male figure with the mutton-chop sideburns we instantly recognise as that of Dr. Allen Fenwick. Not many days after he has discovered Sir Philip Derval's corpse in the street at dusk, he takes Lilian, just returned to L —, for a walk on the heights. Suddenly, they hear Margrave singing in a foreign language — and Lilian's attitude towards Allen changes dramatically as she becomes more distant and less animated. When he takes her home, Mrs. Ashleigh has still not told her daughter about Sir Philip's having been murdered lest the news have an adverse effect on her.

Bibliography

Bulwer-Lytton, Edward G. D. A Strange Story. Illustrated by John McLenan. Harper's Weekly V, 10 August — 8 March 1862.

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Created 21 November 2007

Last updated 19 June 2026