Edited and introduced by J. S. Mackley, this edition situates The Winged Man as both sequel and reinterpretation of The Human Bat (1899-1901). Its detective, Danby Druce, pursues a brilliant but deranged "strange genius" whose mechanical wings and sense of divine retribution embody the tensions of modernity: empire, technology, and the moral cost of progress. Drawing on Gothic melodrama, crime fiction, and early science-fantasy, the narrative fuses fin-de-siècle paranoia with the thrill of aerial adventure.
The extensive introduction traces the character's lineage from Spring-Heeled Jack through the penny-dreadful tradition to Edwardian popular culture, exploring how each incarnation mirrored contemporary fears-urban violence, industrialisation, and the loss of moral certainty. The volume also surveys later sightings and impostors, from the 1904 Liverpool "Leaping Man" to the 1929 Stockport "Spring-Heeled Jack Dog-Poisoner," showing how the legend mutated across media and decades.
Richly annotated and sourced from rare British Library copies, The Winged Man completes The Spring-Heeled Jack Library, offering scholars and enthusiasts the definitive conclusion to Britain's most persistent urban legend-a myth that began in the gaslight streets of 1838 and ended, almost eighty years later, among the clouds.
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