Lord Arthur Savile's Crime by Oscar Wilde (1887)
Enter Mr Podgers and the awful meaning of Doom A strange sense of fatalism surrounds Oscar Wilde's short story Lord Arthur Savile's Crime . A dark humour murder tale with a sort of Guy de Monpaussent type twist at the end. Centred round salon hostess Lady Windermere, seemingly infatuated by cheiromancers (palmreaders ) and fortune tellers generally. Amongst her guests is a young aristocrat by the name of Lord Arthur Savile, who is recently engaged. The hired Cheiromancer is Mr Podgers. There are plenty of Wilden type witticims in play, but the old age problem emerges. What happens if a psychic happens to detect some quite unpleasant destiny? Do th...