In his day George Sims was regarded primarily as a journalist and dramatist, but little of his journalism and his drama survives in print. What was clearly a sideline for him, writing detective fiction, has become one of the chief reasons that he is remembered today. He also wrote verse; his reports of some of his forays into the worst of London slums, commissioned by Pictorial World, were subsequently published as How the Poor Live (1883), but most of his books are collections of short stories. He wrote a few novels, but often they are series of episodes involving the same characters, and it is clear that Sims favored the short-story form. Many of his stories are sentimental romances; some are pure whimsy; but many others involve mystery or crime, and some of these are very good indeed.

George Robert Sims was born into a prosperous London family. From...