References To Actual History, Geography and Current Science
The character of Carlotta Adams was based on the American dramatist Ruth Draper (1884–1956). In her Autobiography, Christie says, “I thought how clever she was and how good her impersonations were; the wonderful way she could transform herself from a nagging wife to a peasant girl kneeling in a cathedral. Thinking about her led me to the book Lord Edgware Dies.” In writing this, Christie forgot that she had previously used the Draper idea in the short story The Dead Harlequin, published in The Mysterious Mr. Quin (1930), where the character was called Aspasia Glen and was the murderer’s accomplice, rather than the victim.
In Chapter 7, Chief Inspector Japp mentions the Elizabeth Canning case which was a real kidnapping case occurred in London in 1753. Such case created a lot of sensation in its time due to the inconsistencies of the victim's declarations and the alibis of the perpetrators. Japp mentions this case due to the particular fact that the suspect was seen at two places at the same time. In the novel Lady Edgware was seen at a dinner party at the time that she was also seen visiting the victim; whereas in the Canning case the suspect, Mary Squires, was seen traveling during the time that Elizabeth Canning said she had her imprisoned.
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Famous quotes containing the words actual, geography, current and/or science:
“What is rational is actual and what is actual is rational. On this conviction the plain man like the philosopher takes his stand, and from it philosophy starts in its study of the universe of mind as well as the universe of nature.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“Where the heart is, there the muses, there the gods sojourn, and not in any geography of fame. Massachusetts, Connecticut River, and Boston Bay, you think paltry places, and the ear loves names of foreign and classic topography. But here we are; and, if we tarry a little, we may come to learn that here is best. See to it, only, that thyself is here;—and art and nature, hope and fate, friends, angels, and the Supreme Being, shall not absent from the chamber where thou sittest.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Gradually the village murmur subsided, and we seemed to be embarked on the placid current of our dreams, floating from past to future as silently as one awakes to fresh morning or evening thoughts.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Imagination could hardly do without metaphor, for imagination is, literally, the moving around in one’s mind of images, and such images tend commonly to be metaphoric. Creative minds, as we know, are rich in images and metaphors, and this is true in science and art alike. The difference between scientist and artist has little to do with the ways of the creative imagination; everything to do with the manner of demonstration and verification of what has been seen or imagined.”
—Robert A. Nisbet (b. 1913)