When William March's novel about a little-girl killer was published in 1954, it attracted widespread attention, probably because its theme—that of cold-blooded, congenital evil—has an almost morbid fascination for many readers. Rhoda is just eight years old, but by the time the book ends she has coolly killed three people and a puppy.

It is noticeable that no question of “guilt” or “sin” enters here. This child may be a criminal, but nowhere is there a suggestion that she is earmarked for a Calvinist hell or even that she is a candidate for repentance. March brushes past these ideas in order to refute them, dwelling instead on the mother's sense of shame and responsibility.

No notice has been taken of the fact that the novel presents a problem that was interesting in the nineteenth cenury, even before Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes focused attention on it with Elsie Venner, the story of a girl who has many ophidian traits, including a murderous disposition. When he wrote it, Holmes found it necessary to reiterate his conviction that evil can possess a human being through no fault of his own; that his forebears can transmit to him various weaknesses and tendencies of which he becomes the helpless victim.

It is known that Holmes as a young man studied under Dr. Gabriel Andral, who theorized on the significance of the hereditary factor in the human body and personality. Whether or not he was the inspiration for Holmes's later very decided opinions on the subject is not definite, but certainly Holmes was convinced that, as his Dr. Honeywood says, “… perversion itself may often be disease, bad habits transmitted, like drunkenness, or some hereditary misfortune.” And the medical student of the novel writes his professor to ask about the possibility that certain “predispositions, inherited or ingrafted, but at any rate constitutional” might take away moral responsibility. “Do you not think there may be a crime which is not a sin?”

For Holmes, as later for March, the answer is a decided affirmative; he writes Elsie Venner to illustrate it. The differences between their two novels are those of eras, which cause emphasis to be placed on different aspects of the problem of inherited evil. The warm humanitarianism and sentimentality of Holmes's story, the constant justification of his stand from a moral point of view—these betray the Victorian. March's story, superbly crafted, with careful attention to clinical details, and with references to modern knowledge of psychology, is certainly more “scientific.”

Comparison of the two is of interest. In the first place, both “heroines” receive their evil “predispositions” through their mothers. Elsie Venner's “badness” is supposedly the result of a snake bite suffered by her mother a few months before she was born. (However, as Holmes frequently goes into extended discussions of heredity, one is tempted to regard the prenatal poisoning theory as a blind, perhaps a symbol.) And Rhoda's mother, herself the daughter of a killer, reflects, “I carried the bad seed that made her what she is.”

Neither girl seems capable of ordinary human affection. The young schoolmaster thinks that Elsie looks “as if she might hate, but could not love”; her beauty has nothing at all of “human warmth”; “nature had meant her to be lovely, and left out nothing but love.” Though Rhoda dutifully goes through the outward manifestations of affection, a psychiatrist decides that she has “no capacity for affection … being concerned only with herself.”

Neither seems to live in the world of her contemporaries. Elsie does not attempt to mingle with her schoolmates, who regard her with awe, if not aversion, and children of Rhoda's age cannot “bear” Rhoda. This living apart shows even in dress: Elsie's clothes are always of a strangely-patterned material, and never look like those of other girls. Rhoda is the only little girl to wear a dress, instead of coveralls, to the school picnic.

Because death horrifies neither Elsie nor Rhoda, each is capable of premeditated killing. Elsie makes an attempt on the life of a governess whom she despises, and is ready to do the same with her cousin Dick Venner after he has roused her antipathy. She employs poison, slipping it into her victims' food, but Rhoda uses various methods: an old lady is shoved down a flight of stairs, a little boy is pushed into the water and beaten until he drowns, and a vicious handyman is burned alive.

In view of the circumstances, therefore, it is an inescapable fact that both are born “different.” Elsie's teacher puts a key question concerning her: “Are there not natures born so out of parallel with the lines of natural law that nothing short of a miracle can bring them right?” Rhoda is also found “out of parallel.” The psychiatrist likens her to “a charming little animal that can never be trained to fit into the conventional patterns of existence.” Her mother sees in her evidence of a dawning realization that “some factor of body or spirit separated her from those around her.”

The parents of these girls provide love and care and security, and in return they are anguished. Dudley Venner, though mourning the death of his wife, has only patience and kindness for his daughter. His life is devoted to her, in spite of the suffering caused him by her strange, cold nature. The worst of this suffering is loneliness: he cannot confide in anyone.

Similarly, Rhoda's mother and father have surrounded their daughter with love, at the same time taking care not to spoil her. Yet “there had always been something strange about the child.” And when the mother finally faces the realization of what Rhoda's character is, she has to bear the knowledge alone, for her husband is away. A gentle, refined person much like Dudley Venner, she knows it is impossible for her to discuss the situation with anyone.

Obviously, for both girls death is the only answer. To be sure, Holmes's ending is Victorian in the extreme, and oozes sentimentality: Elsie's nature changes, and she becomes mortally ill, dying in an aura of love. However, it is this very change which causes death, for the evil in the girl involves her “life centre,” and eradication of it destroys her. As for Rhoda, Christine comes painfully to the realization that there is no hope for her; she must be put to death.

Thus, while it would be wrong to ignore the differences between these two novels, it is clear that William March has stated Dr. Holmes's story over again, in a simpler, perhaps more effective, way.