Detective Fiction
London, Stanley Paul, 1953.
First edition. 8vo. Original green boards. Dust-jacket, price-clipped with price sticker of 6/-.
An uncommon first edition thriller by an enigmatic author.
Detective Fiction
London, Michael Joseph, 1977.
First edition. 8vo. Original burgundy boards. Dust-jacket, priced £3.75.
A nice copy of this later Mrs Bradley title by "The Great Gladys".
Detective Fiction
London, Peter Davies, 1935.
First edition. 8vo. Original tan cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 7/6.
The Ventriloquist, by E. Belasyse, is a much better crime story. It is written with a commendable simplicity, for one thing. If it is a first novel, it is unusually well planned and executed. The people are real." (Illustrated London News, vol.187).
Detective Fiction
London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1934.
First edition, reprint. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, with price sticker 2/6.
A darn decent copy of this difficult title to find in a contemporary jacket.
Detective Fiction
A Cracksman Novel
London, John Lane The Bodley Head, 1938.
First edition. 8vo. Original yellow cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 3s 6d.
Russian aristocrat exile turns to crime in America, and elsewhere.
Detective Fiction
Gunn (Victor, pseud. Edwy Searles Brooks, aka Berkeley Gray) Three Dates with Death
London, Collins Crime Club, 1947.
First edition. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced 3s.6d.
A pleasing first edition of the twelfth novel in the author's "Ironsides" Cromwell series.
Detective Fiction
London, Drane's, [1924].
First edition. 8vo. Original green boards. Dust-jacket, priced 6/-.
An uncommon first edition of this collection published by an uncommon imprint. Many of the tales revolve around a consulting detective agency in Calcutta, as in the author's coeval work Benjamin & Co., and despite a tendency towards some rather "old school" jingoism and misogyny do include some rather wonderfully evocative sketches of colonial life in India.
Detective Fiction
New Stories of Murder and Mystery
New York, Charles Scribners, 1928.
First US edition. 8vo. Original pictorial orange cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
One of several anthologies compiled by the writer and socialite Lady Cynthia Asquith, herself known as an author of ghost stories. Uncommon in the original dust-jacket.
Detective Fiction
London, Geoffrey Bles, 1935.Popular edition first reprint. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 4/6 (second issue?).An uncommon early issue of this rare Rhodes title, originally published in 1928, the jacket featuring the original classic artwork by well-known artist Abbey; one of this prolific author's earliest books, set against a yachting culture backdrop.
![Alternative view of Teed (G.H[amilton].) Five in Fear](https://lycanthiabooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/84324_2-300x400.jpg)
Detective Fiction
London, Stanley Smith, 1936.
First edition. 8vo. Original dark blue cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 3/6.
Attractive, somewhat menacing dust-jacket artwork graces this tale published under an uncommon imprint.
Detective Fiction
London, Herbert Jenkins, 1948.
First edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth.
A very good example of this uncommon cricket-related crime novel, which invites the reader to solve the crime by following the clues.
Detective Fiction
London, John Hamilton, 1929.
First edition. 8vo. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 7/6.
A pleasing example of this first edition, seemingly one of only two titles by this author. A conspiracy to murder a leading art expert unravels... Scarce.
London, Jenkins, [1921].
First edition. 8vo. Original pictorial boards. Dust-jacket, priced 2/.
An early dust-jacket, with wonderful jacket artwork.
London, Constable, 1931.
First edition. 8vo. Original green cloth lettered in white. Dust-jacket, priced 2s.6d.
A first-class mystery... a story of dark doings, with a pleasant background of East coast life... (Daily Telegraph). Attractive jacket artwork, and a scarce first edition, here in a slightly later issue jacket.
Detective Fiction
London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1936.
First Omnibus edition. 8vo. Original oatmeal cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 7/6.
An attractive edition comprising four stories, 'The Man with the Clubfoot', 'The Return of Club Foot', 'The Crouching Beast' and 'The Gold Comfit Box'.
Detective Fiction
Further Crime Investigations of Madame Storey.
London, Collins Crime Club, 1930.
First edition. 8vo. Original cloth (red issue). Dust-jacket, second state, correctly priced 3/6.
The ongoing exploits of Footner's serial character, the brilliant lady detective, Madame Storey, set in Paris. The second issue jacket is to a wholly different design than the first, and as a result considered highly collectable.
Detective Fiction
London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1959.
First edition. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 12s.6d.
A couple discover that their child-sitter served a prison sentence for child murder, something they cannot square with the individual in question, sparking their own investigation and the unravelling of some strange secrets.
Detective Fiction
Iles (Frances, pseud. Anthony Berkeley Cox) Malice Aforethought.
The story of a commonplace crime
London, Mundanus / Gollancz, 1931.
First edition (preceding the hardback). 8vo. Original printed wrappers. Housed in morocco-backed cloth slip-case and chemise.
An uncommon work by Anthony Berkeley Cox, aka Anthony Berkeley. The work is significant in the genre of crime fiction as one of the earliest and finest examples of the inverted detective story, a technique which would go on to inspire numerous other authors, as well as film-makers - notably Hitchcock and his 1941 film Suspicion (actually based on another, similar Iles title).
Detective Fiction
London, Thornton Butterworth, [c.1934]..Crime Circle Novels series. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 2/6.An attractive edition of this teasingly lycanthropic novel, translated from the original French. The jacket design for the series is by Bip Pares, whose work also graced the jackets for Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker and James Hilton's Mr Chips titles, amongst many others.
Detective Fiction
London, Jarrolds, [1927].First edition thus. 8vo. Original green cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 2/6.Although originally published in 1909, this later edition is quite superb in the original dust-jacket.
Detective Fiction
London, Mills & Boon, 1929.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 2/6.
The first UK edition of this crime thriller; Mills & Boon today have a reputation for "romantic fiction", but they were early champions of several subsequently famous authors, including Jack London and P.G. Wodehouse.
Detective Fiction
London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1964.
First edition. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
A very good first edition of this later Dr Palfrey tales, by one of the most prolific authors in the crime/thriller genre.
Detective Fiction
London & Boston, John Lane; Roberts Bros,, 1895.
First edition. 8vo. Original purple decorative cloth.
One of the most well-known and collectable of Lane's important 'Keynotes' series, this being the seventh in the series, and the first of two appearances therein for the "King of Redonda" (the other being his influential work Shapes in the Fire, number XXIX). Aubrey Beardsley provided the title-page/cover designs and most if not all of the monogram key devices for the series up until vol.XXIII.
Prince Zaleski was Shiel's first published work, drawing inspiration in part from the detective tales of Edgar Allan Poe, and comprising three mysteries: "The Race of Orven", "The Stone of the Edmundsbury Monks", and "The S.S.", each to be solved by the eponymous Zaleski, an eccentric Russian nobleman living in exile in a derelict Welsh abbey.
Detective Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1972.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
Travis McGee experiences the rough side of Southern hospitality...
Detective Fiction
London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1957.
First edition. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 12/6.
A very good first edition of this later and hard-to-find Freeman Wills Crofts title, featuring series character Chief Superintendent French, "the most human sleuth to be found in detective novels today" (Punch).
Detective Fiction
London, W.H. Allen, 1983.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
We are kept off balance throughout this icy, understand thriller...brilliant (Newsweek review).
![Alternative view of Armstrong (Anthony) [pseud. George Anthony Armstrong Willis] Jimmie Rezaire](https://lycanthiabooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/84122_2-300x400.jpg)
London, Stanley Paul, 1927.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Advertisements. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 7/6.
Detective fiction with spy thriller overtones, courtesy of Anglo-Canadian author 'Anthony Armstrong' - striking jacket artwork; scarce.
Detective Fiction
London, Stanley Paul, [1934].
First edition. 8vo. Publisher's compliments stamp to title; advertisements. Original black cloth lettered in red. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 7/6.
All of the first editions by this author of crime fiction appear to be scarce - despite the wear to the jacket this is an attractive example, with a visually compelling jacket design.
Detective Fiction
London, Hutchinson, [1933].
First UK edition. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, with ?publisher's price-sticker 2/6 overlaid on original price.
A good+ copy of this title, uncommon in US or UK edition - the author is well-known for his sport-related crime novels, including 70,000 Witnesses.
Detective Fiction
London, Gollancz, 1936.First UK edition. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced at 7/6.An uncommon Asey Mayo tale and the first time we have encountered it in a jacket.
Detective Fiction
A Judge Peck Mystery Story
London, George Newnes, [1936]..
First UK edition. 8vo. Original green cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced at 2/6.
A stunning jacket on this first UK edition of Arkham House stalwart Derleth's second Judge Peck mystery, in which not one but three sons-in-law meet an unknown death. First published in the US in 1934. The splendid jacket artwork features a naked man on all fours, of course, holding a smoking gun.
Detective Fiction
The Case of the Murdered Band Leader
London, John Lane The Bodley Head, 1939.
First UK edition. 8vo. 2pp. advertisements. Original teal cloth lettered in red. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 7s6d.
Set in the glittering background of an ultra-modern night club in San Francisco, peopled by famous stars, Sudden Silence has an interest rivalled only by the strangeness of its incidents. (jacket).
Detective Fiction
London, The Literary Press, n.d..
First edition thus. 8vo. Original green cloth. Dust-jacket.
What was the secret of Chesterton Square?
Detective Fiction
London, Ward, Lock, 1938.First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. 2pp. advertisements. Original green cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced at 7/6.A very good first UK edition by a prolific, somewhat bonkers crime writer, a foray into the "locked room" subgenre, revolving around a mysterious manuscript (possibly derived from a short story penned by the author's wife, herself a writer[?]). Scarce in the first issue jacket.
Detective Fiction
London, Rich & Cowan, 1939.
First edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
Visually intriguing jacket artwork, and a tale of espionage, treasure, murder, and at least one giant hunchback, of course.
Detective Fiction
London, The Readers Library, n.d. [1933].
First edition thus. Small 8vo. 2pp. advertisements. Original cloth, gilt. Dust-jacket, adverts printed to reverse.
An attractive pre-war edition, in good jacket.
Detective Fiction
[pp.210-224 in The Strand Magazine, vol.LXV
London, Newnes, January - June 1923].
First edition. 4to. Publisher's bevelled pale blue pictorial cloth blocked in black & gilt.
An unsettling, cautionary Sherlock Holmes tale about drug-fuelled lust...and a certain amount of monkey business. Included in The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (1927). Other authors present in this volume include P.G. Wodehouse (including 'Jeeves Takes Charge'), Aldous Huxley and E. Phillips Oppenheim.
Detective Fiction
London, Hutchinson, n.d. [c.1930].
Third edition (stated). Small 8vo. Original cloth, gilt. Dust-jacket, priced 2/- and stating '5th Thousand'.
An early edition of this collaboration between the Hanshews, scarce in the original dust-jacket - with artwork by the illustrator Joseph Abbey.
Detective Fiction
London &c., Cassell, 1913.
First edition. 8vo. 4pp. advertisements. Original brown cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 6/-.
The first chapter of Mr. Edge's story is enough to indicate the mystery which is to be unravelled, and every succeeding chapter makes the mystery deeper until the final elucidation... (The Bookseller, Vol. 60, 1914).
An early detective fiction title, in a remarkably excellent pre WW1 dust-jacket. Exceptionally scarce, with only six copies recorded by WorldCat, and no copies in trade or at auction that we could trace.
Detective Fiction
London, Constable, 1924.
First edition. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 7/6, with publisher's 'file' sticker to spine. Publisher's promotional card loosely inserted.
A tale of mild villainy and opportunism featuring a parasitical couple on the fringes of cosmopolitan society. Attractive jacket artwork by A. Mary Ryland.
Detective Fiction
London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1935.
First edition. 8vo. 1p. advertisements. Original cloth. Dust-jackets, correctly priced 7s 6d.
A very good first edition of this intriguing novel, based on the story Mon premier crime by Gustave Macé, in the series "La Police parisienne."
Detective Fiction
London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1934.
First edition, second impression. 8vo. Original blind-tooled red cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 2/6.
An attractive early impression of this 'Yellow Jacket' Dr Thorndyke tale, bringing the good doctor's famous forensic mind to bear once more.