Sergeant Richard Cuff is a fictional character in

Wilkie Collins William Wilkie Collins (8 January 1824 – 23 September 1889) was an English novelist and playwright known especially for ''The Woman in White (novel), The Woman in White'' (1860), a mystery novel and early sensation novel, and for ''The Moonsto ...

' 1868 novel ''

The Moonstone ''The Moonstone: A Romance'' by Wilkie Collins is an 1868 British epistolary novel. It is an early example of the modern detective novel, and established many of the ground rules of the modern genre. Its publication was started on 4 January 18 ...

''. He represents one of the earliest portrayals of a police detective in an English novel.

Description

Cuff is described within the novel as confident and intelligent, with a piercing gaze and a self-possessed manner. Physically, he is "a grizzled, elderly man... his face was as sharp as a hatchet, and the skin of it was as yellow and dry and withered as an autumn leaf". He is characterised as having a passionate interest for growing roses, and has the habit of whistling ''

The Last Rose of Summer "The Last Rose of Summer" is a poem by the Irish poet Thomas Moore. He wrote it in 1805, while staying at Jenkinstown Castle in County Kilkenny, Ireland, where he was said to have been inspired by a specimen of Rosa 'Old Blush'. The poem is ...

'', a traditional Irish song, when investigating.

Inspiration

worked alongside

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English novelist, journalist, short story writer and Social criticism, social critic. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by ...

on the weekly newspaper ''All the Year Round'', and evidence suggests that both were individually inspired by police detective Charles Frederick Field. While Dickens used Field as the basis for the character as Inspector Bucket in ''

Bleak House ''Bleak House'' is a novel by English author Charles Dickens, first published as a 20-episode Serial (literature), serial between 12 March 1852 and 12 September 1853. The novel has many characters and several subplots, and is told partly by th ...

'' (1853), it is likely that Collins was also inspired by the "thief-taker". Wilkie Collins was also inspired by Detective Inspector

Jack Whicher Detective Inspector Jonathan Whicher (1 October 1814 – 29 June 1881) was an English police detective. He was one of the original eight members of London's newly formed Detective Branch, which was established at Scotland Yard in 1842.

in creating Cuff, particularly his investigation of the 1860 murder of Francis Saville Kent. Several plot details from ''The Moonstone'' derive from the Road Hill Case, including the missing nightdress stained with paint and the incriminating laundry book. Cuff's melancholic nature was also inspired by Whicher, as well as his role of a London detective investigating a rural household. The case was still in the public mind as

Constance Kent Constance Emily Kent (1844–1944) was an English woman who confessed to the murder of her half-brother, Francis Saville Kent, in 1860, when she was aged 16 and he aged three. The case led to high-level pronouncements that there was no longer a ...

confessed for the crime in 1865, three years before the publication of the novel. Inspector Cuff would undoubtedly have been recognised as a reflection of Whicher by the Victorian reading public. The name 'Cuff' comes from contemporary Victorian slang, meaning 'to handcuff'.

Influence

Cuff differs from later portrayals of the 'Great Detective' by not arriving at the correct solution, accusing Miss Rachel Verinder instead of the actual culprit,

Godfrey Ablewhite Godfrey Ablewhite is a character in Wilkie Collins' 1868 novel ''The Moonstone''. A vocal philanthropist, he is one of the rival suitors of Rachel Verinder, to whom he is briefly engaged before his mercenary motives are revealed. Religiosity cha ...

. In examining the work in parallel with the Road Hill House case, Cuff arrived at the same conclusion that Whicher did, that the daughter of the house,

, was the criminal. Collins ignored the official solution in favour of "the notions of somnambulism, unconscious deeds, double selves that the Road case had aroused, the dizzying whirl of perspectives that had been brought to bear upon the investigation." An anonymous review in ''The Times'', published on 3 October 1868, highlighted the role of Sergeant Cuff:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cuff, Sergeant Fictional British police detectives Male characters in literature Fictional characters introduced in 1868 Fictional English people