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Nelson Lee first appeared in "A Dead Man's Secret" in The Halfpenny Marvel #46, 19 September 1894. He was created by "Maxwell Scott," the pseudonym of Dr. John Staniforth (1863-1927), a Yorkshire medical doctor (he dealt with the smallpox epidemic of the 1890s in Sheffield) who wrote boys' story paper stories to augment his income and who later became a J.P. Steve Holland, the operator of the splendid Story Papers Index.
Lee, as mentioned, was popular enough to rival Sexton Blake himself for many years, though as Steve Holland points out Blake fairly quickly became the more famous of the two. Lee was initially, during the first phase of his fictional career, just a detective. Hardly "just," though; he was the "hero of Lhasa and Limehouse, confidant of Lloyd George and Kitchener." He ranged around the world solving mysteries but was usually to be found in London. His apartment, which doubled as his headquarters, was in Gray's Inn Road. He was "aquiline, with sunken yet clear eyes...he could even be called good-looking." Although quite virile and tough--an underwater battle with axes was as nothing to him--he preferred the comfort of his living room; he's been called a "dressing-gown detective" because of his tendency to pace about his room ("with the rapid stride and muttered growls of a caged and hungry lion") in his nightgown as he solved mysteries without actually going to the scenes of the crimes. Likewise, although he was strong and tough and a red-blooded adventurer--"there is no such word as 'fail' in the dictionary of Nelson Lee"--he enjoyed his Turkish carpets and his antique lamps. Until 1902 he worked intermittently with the French detective Jean Moreau, a man as brilliant as Lee, but Moreau eventually betrayed Lee (a little matter of the French crown jewels) and Nelson had him given into custody.
Lee's assistant was Richard Hamilton, better known as "Nipper." Nipper was a street urchin whose "features, like his hands, were perfectly modeled" under his filth. Nipper, introduced in Lee's first appearance, was an acrobat who had memorized from somewhere the output of large numbers of poets, Latin, German and other; Nipper was bright and eager and a good person despite his desperate background. Lee had rescued Nipper from a life of crime (he wasn't supporting himself, even by selling matches) on the streets of London, quite similar to how Sexton Blake had first met his assistant, Tinker, and like Tinker Nipper repaid Lee by becoming his assistant and friend forever after. I should note, though, that there is another account of Nipper's background, one which shows Nipper as a "semi-millionaire" school boy at St. Ninian's, a public school, and that it was at St. Ninian's that Lee met Nipper.
For some years Lee was also assisted by Eileen Dare, a "girl detective" (actually a young woman, but why quibble) who was very useful to Lee in cases where he needed "a woman's intuition" or someone to infiltrate a "house of mystery" in the disguise of a parlor maid. Lee paid more attention to his appearance and slicked back his hair when she was around, and was always very courteous to her, calling her "Miss Dare;" the more dirty-minded among us would suspect them of having an affair, and of her sharing his bachelor quarters. Eileen, however, was engaged to one Captain Billy Masters, and her disappearance in the series after 1918 can most likely be ascribed to her marrying Captain Masters and settling down to be his wife. Lee also had a bloodhound, Rajah, who was quite similar to Blake's Pedro, being ferocious, intelligent, and very faithful. Later on, Rajah was replaced by Wolf, another bloodhound.
Lee did not care for the money he made on his cases, but did care about not having to handle "routine small-time stuff;" unless the case was personal, he almost always took on the more interesting, gruesome, or internationally-flavoured cases. During the detective phase of Lee's career he was very similar to Blake (without, I hasten to add, being a Blake copy) in the scope of his cases as well as the enemies he faced, for more on whom see below. Lee never had quite the same level of opponent as Blake, but his enemies, as you'll soon see, were quite respectable nonetheless.
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