Howell's Letters and the Fine Art of Extortion

By Keith Bamler Category: Blackmail & Whispered Threats 24th June 2026

Scandal lived in a bowler hat and smoked a bad cigar. Charles Augustus Howell prowled the studios and tearooms of the 1860s and 1870s like a fox in a silk waistcoat. He was an art dealer by trade and a fixer by temperament. People brought him letters, confidences and petty embarrassments. He left with cash in his pocket and someone else looking acky in the papers.

He allus had friends among poets and painters. Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his circle trusted him. That trust, it turned out, was as fragile as a glazed teacup. Howell handled manuscripts. He handled gossip. When certain letters curdled into scandal, gentlemen began to feel uneasy. Howell's method was charming. He would cal on a sitter, mention a remark, then hint at trouble. A polite request for brass appeared in the post. It read like a recipe for civility gone rogue.

Newspapers called it forgery and extortion. Howell was accused of forging correspondence and using those falsities as leverage. The law sniffed at him. Witnesses chelped and men of standing grew mardy. Some called him a beggar of souls. Others muttered he was a champion hustler. The proofs were sometimes thin. The rumours were fat. Howell thrived where reputations were soft and pockets a bit jammy.

His world was art and dark corners, salons where paint smelled of turpentine and secret debts. An accusation could send a household into a flurry of fettle. A letter misplaced, a neb pricked, and then came the demand. The city fed on such things. Victims paid because exposure would bray through their lives. Howell, ever the urbane barmpot, kept a ledger that looked respectable if you were cack handed with morals.

He vanished into scandal eventually. Accounts differ on how swiftly justice caught him. What remains is how simple it was then to twist a line on paper into a threat and turn a friendship into profit. It makes one think twice about what one leaves lying on a table. Keep your letters close. Keep your brass closer.