Miss Diana Marburg, also known as "The Oracle of

Maddox Street Maddox Street is a street in the Mayfair area of London, extending from Regent Street to St George's, Hanover Square. History Maddox Street was completed in 1720. It was named after Sir Benjamin Maddox who owned the Millfield estate on which th ...

", is a palmist and female occult detective created by the writers

L. T. Meade L. T. Meade was the pseudonym of Elizabeth Thomasina Meade Smith (1844–1914), a prolific writer of girls' stories. She was born in Bandon, County Cork, Ireland, daughter of Rev. R. T. Meade, of Nohoval, County Cork. Stephen Brown: A Reader's ...

and

Robert Eustace Robert Eustace was the pen name of Eustace Robert Barton (1854–1943), an English doctor and author of mystery and crime fiction with a theme of scientific innovation. He also wrote as Eustace Robert Rawlings. Eustace often collaborated with oth ...

. The character is unusual for Meade, insofar that there is a supernatural element involved in her detective skills, though elements of this are taken from the authors' character John Bell in ''The Master of Mysteries''. Diana Marburg first appeared in the New York edition of Pearson's Magazine in February 1902, in a story entitled 'The Dead Hand'. Two further stories were published, 'Finger Tips' (August 1902) and 'Sir Penn Caryll's Engagement' (December 1902). The stories were published in book form along with seven non-Marburg stories in ''The Oracle of Maddox Street'' (Ward, Lock & Co., 1904). The Marburg stories have since featured in a number of anthologies. The author Scott Dickerson has written three further adventures of Miss Marburg, narrated by her brother Rupert, along with versions of the originals, though with changed titles, published in his ''The Oracular Miss Marburg: Paranormal powers, woman detective--Victorian London!'' (The YOUNG & SMART Series Book T8). The book is only available as a Kindle edition. One of the new stories features the scientist

Sir William Crookes Sir William Crookes (; 17 June 1832 – 4 April 1919) was a British chemist and physicist who attended the Royal College of Chemistry, now part of Imperial College London, and worked on spectroscopy. He was a pioneer of vacuum tubes, inventing t ...

and the bogus medium Florence Cook, both historical characters, and another features Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Marburg, Diana) Literary characters introduced in 1902 Characters in mystery novel series of the 20th century Fictional occult and psychic detectives Female characters in literature