A classic for all mystery lovers The Big Bow Mystery was the first locked room murder novel. It has been almost continuously in print since 1891 and has been used as the basis for three commercial films. Zangwill was born in London on January 21, 1864 in a family of Jewish immigrants from Czarist Russia (Moses Zangwill from what is now Latvia and Ellen Hannah Marks Zangwill from what is now Poland), he dedicated his life to championing the cause of the oppressed. Jewish emancipation, women's suffrage, assimilationism, territorialism and Zionism (understood as a national liberation movement) were all fertile fields for his pen.