The Burning Court by John Dickson Carr
"The Burning Court" is a distinctive novel that blends elements of detective fiction with occult horror. The story follows Edward Stevens, a New York editor who becomes intrigued by the historical figure Marie D'Aubray, a woman guillotined for murder in the nineteenth century, who bears an uncanny resemblance to his wife. As Edward delves deeper into Marie's past, he grapples with unsettling questions about her lineage and the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of his friend Mark’s uncle. The narrative unfolds with a traditional detective story structure, leading to the revelation of a murder mystery, where suspicions initially fall on Marie. However, the plot takes a significant turn in the epilogue, introducing supernatural themes that suggest Marie’s true nature as a witch and detail her past lives, complicating her relationship with Edward. The story ultimately explores themes of identity, memory, and the darker aspects of love, raising questions about the consequences of Marie's immortality and her intentions towards Edward. This unique combination of genres invites readers to reflect on the interplay between rational explanations and the supernatural.
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The Burning Court
First published: 1937
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Fantasy—occult
Time of work: 1929
Locale: Pennsylvania
The Plot
The Burning Court is an unusual novel—a cross between a traditional detective story and an occult horror tale. Without the epilogue, it is a detective novel similar to John Dickson Carr’s other works, in which the murderer is caught and the woman who was wrongly suspected is vindicated. The epilogue unexpectedly brings in the supernatural as the true explanation, turning the story into a horror tale.
Edward Stevens, an editor with a New York publishing house, is working on a book about nineteenth cen-tury murderers when he finds a photograph of Marie D’Aubray, a woman guillotined for murder in 1881. He is disconcerted to see that she closely resembles his wife, Marie. He realizes how little he knows about his beautiful wife, who captivated him with what he calls her “spiritual” look. A professor friend tells him that another Marie D’Aubray was condemned as a murderer in 1676. Watching Marie as she goes about her housewifely duties in their Philadelphia home, Edward wonders about her ancestry.
Edward’s friends Mark and Lucy Despard are concerned that their Uncle Miles’s death from gastroenteritis may not in fact have been from natural causes. Mark even wonders if Lucy is involved, considering that they inherited Miles’s property. Mark, Edward, and a doctor friend attempt to disinter the body to check for poison, but it has been removed. Meanwhile, evidence suggesting that Marie is a witch accumulates, making Edward uneasy and suspicious.
Finally, witnesses of Miles’s death are brought forth, and it is revealed that he was indeed murdered. Moreover, it appears that Marie, not Lucy, is guilty. At the last minute, everything is explained: Another woman— Miles’s nurse and lover—appears to be the murderer, and her guilt is apparently demonstrated by the fact that she killed someone else in view of police officers. Marie’s witchlike behavior is explained away by psychology; she was reared by a psychotic, abusive aunt who believed in witchcraft and who made Marie believe that she herself was a witch.
The epilogue takes the reader into Marie’s mind after the investigation is over. It reveals that she is a witch and was executed in the seventeenth century and then again in the nineteenth century. She had forgotten much about her earlier incarnations, but she is beginning to remember details of past lives. Her love for her husband Edward is real, but it is not a good thing for Edward: It means that she will soon make him one of the “non-dead” immortal evildoers, and this will require that she “transform” (kill) him. She hopes she can do this “without pain. Or too much pain.”