Detective Fiction
New York, Macaulay Company, 1922.
First US edition. 8vo. Original dark chocolate pictorial cloth blocked in orange. Dust-jacket.
A lovely first edition in English of this title featuring Arséne Lupin, Leblanc's famous counterpoint to Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. This the issue with the 'Smoke of the.45' at the top of the lower panel advertisements.
Detective Fiction
London, Jonathan Cape, 1956.
First edition. 8vo. Original green boards. Dust-jacket, correctly priced at 13s.6d.
A very good first edition of this murder mystery, featuring series character Miss Hogg and her faithful chum Milly Brown, and a lost manuscript by Emily Brontë... Austin Lee was a prolific author, also writing under the pseudonyms John Austwick and Julian Callender.
Detective Fiction
Lees (Hannah, pseud. Elizabeth Head Fetter) and Lawrence Bachmann. Death in the Doll’s House
London, John Murray, 1944.
First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 8/6.
Psychological elements in a murder mystery involving a six-year-old child... basis for the 1950 film Shadow on the Wall.
Detective Fiction
London, Rupert Hart-Davis, 1967.
First edition. 8vo. Original purple boards. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
A very good first edition of the first book by Lemarchand, introducing CDI Tom Pollard and his assistant Sergeant Toye of Scotland Yard.
Detective Fiction
First Crime Circle Edition.
London. Thornton Butterworth, 1935
Fabulous stylistic dustjacket art by Bip Pares.
Detective Fiction
Leonard (Charles L., pseud. Mary Violet Heberden) The 4th Funeral
London, Museum Press, 1951.
First edition. 8vo. Original black cloth with silver lettering and red skull motif to spine. Dust-jacket, priced 9/6.
When a doctor's wife suspects that her husband's supposed suicide is actually murder, Paul Kilgerrin finds his plans for leaving Belem, Brazil, suddenly cancelled. He also believes that it is murder...
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).
Detective Fiction
London, Readers Library Crime Series, n.d. [c.1930].
Readers Library edition. Small 8vo. Original gilt-tooled burgundy cloth. Dust-jacket.
A really nice copy of this edition of The Floating Prison by Phantom of the Opera author Leroux, first published in English in 1922.
Detective Fiction
First edition, ‘7th thousand’.
London, Skeffington, [1932].
Skeffington often used ‘7th thousand’ label on title page to try and show that their titles were in high demand so this is not necessarily a reprint.
A Hubin-listed mystery featuring the author’s serial character, detective-crook Jimmy Traynor.
Detective Fiction
Lorac (E.C.R., pseud. Edith Caroline Rivett) Murder in Vienna
London, Collins Crime Club, 1956.
First edition. 8vo. Original red boards. Dust-jacket, priced 10s6d.
A very nice copy of this crime novel featuring "London Scott" Robert Macdonald, unusual in being set beyond Britain's shores.
Detective Fiction
Lorac (E.C.R., pseud. Edith Caroline Rivett) The Theft of the Iron Dogs
London, Collins Crime Club, 1946.
First edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
A fascinating mystery set against a backdrop of the beautiful Fell country of Lunesdale in Lancashire.
Detective Fiction
London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1950
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards, Dust-jacket.
A near fine example of this the first book by the author using this pseudonym. An uncommon classic of crime fiction, revolving around a sudden death at a cocktail party.
Detective Fiction
London, Hutchinson, 1939.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 7/6.
Apparently derived from a theatrical anecdote given to the author by George du Maurier, building upon the author's literary reputation for combining exciting incidents with psychological interest.
Detective Fiction
London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1947.
First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced at 9/-.
A superior example of the courtroom drama subgenre.
Detective Fiction
London, Harrap, 1929.
First edition. 8vo. Original red boards. Dust-jacket.
The first crime fiction work by this prolific author, published as part of Harrap's 'Sealed Mysteries' series. Each member of a small party at a cabaret on the night a murder is committed is suspected and then eliminated through evidence.
Detective Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1970.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket.
Two headlong tales of intrigue, suspense and murder, by a master storyteller. Uncommon.
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
Macdonald (John Ross, pseud. Kenneth Millar) The Drowning Pool
New York, Knopf, 1950.
First edition (stated on copyright page). 8vo. Original green patterned cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced $2.50
The first edition of John Ross Macdonald's second Lew Archer title, preceding the UK edition by two years; subsequently the inspiration for the 1975 Paul Newman film of the same name.
Detective Fiction
London, Collins Crime Club, 1948.
First edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 8s6d.
An interesting collaboration, recounting the misadventures of a Jekyll & Hyde New York socialite.
Detective Fiction
New York, Alfred Knopf, 1958.
First edition. 8vo. Original patterned boards. Dust-jacket, priced $2.95.
An attractive first edition by an author ranked amongst the very best of American crime fiction. Detective Lew Archer is hired by Carl Hallman to investigate his wealthy parents' deaths. Delving into the corrupt world of the Hallman dynasty in Purissima, Archer uncovers political intimidation, treachery, and a family under threat from its own dark past. Uncommon.
Detective Fiction
London, Collins Crime Club, 1965.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original cloth-backed boards. Dust-jacket, priced 16s.
The first UK edition of this example of US hardboiled 'tec fiction, featuring recurring protagonist Lew Archer.
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, F.V. White & Co., Ltd., 1915.
First edition. 8vo. Original red cloth lettered in black. Dust-jacket, priced 6/.
An uncommon murder mystery, particularly in the original 1915 dust-jacket, a rare survivor.
Detective Fiction
London, Collins Crime Club, 1945.
First edition. 8vo. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket,
The first edition of the Scottish author's first novel, featuring former CID detective David Stanners. Uncommon in the jacket.
Detective Fiction
London, George G. Harrap, [1928].
First edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth, dust-jacket, priced 2/6.
The mystery of a Murdered Blackmailer in a London Flat (jacket). From Harrap's Popular Fiction Library, with checkered back panel.
Detective Fiction
First edition, second impression first month as first state April 1935.
London. Collins, 1935
Stephen Maddock was a pseudonym used by prolific adventure and crime fiction writer JT Walsh born 1897 to 1952. He had two main series characters under this name: Inspector Slane and Timothy Terrel, the latter of whom appears in Conspirators in Capri. Very scarce in a jacket.
Detective Fiction
First edition.
London, Collins, 1947.
Stephen Maddock was a pseudonym of JM Walsh and used for his more explicitly criminous titles.
Detective Fiction
London, Collins Crime Club, 1943.
First edition. 8vo. Original dark orange cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
A murder mystery, set in a thermal spa in the author's home country New Zealand.
Detective Fiction
London, Collins Crime Club, 1940.
First edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
An uncommon first edition, featuring Marsh's series character Chief Detective-Inspector Roderick Alleyn of Scotland Yard.
Detective Fiction
London, Collins Crime Club, 1939. First edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth lettered in black. Dust-jacket, without price (Colonial issue?) A Haycraft Queen Cornerstone, and a scarce first edition in the original jacket. This is the eighth novel to feature Roderick Alleyn, and the third novel in which Alleyn's love interest, the painter Agatha Troy features, hastening the imminent departure of Nigel Bathgate (Alleyn's "Watson").
London, Digby, Long, 1900.
First edition. 8vo. Advertisement leaf, publisher's catalogue at end dated October 1900. Original pictorial cloth blocked in white, black & green.
A very attractive turn-of-the-century title by the author of The Beetle. Listed in Hubin.
London, Methuen, [1916].
First edition. 8vo. Publisher's catalogue at end. Original blue cloth.
The adventures of one of Marsh's most intriguing characters, Miss Judith Lee, a young teacher of deaf pupils whose lip-reading ability involves her with mysteries that she solves by acting as a detective.
Detective Fiction
Marsh (Richard, pseud. Richard Bernard Heldmann) The Marquis of Putney
London, Methuen, 1905.
First edition. 8vo. Publisher's catalogue at end dated March 1905. Original red cloth blocked in gilt.
One of the obscurer titles by the author of The Beetle. Hubin-listed.
Detective Fiction
a Demon
London, F.V. White, 1900.
First edition. 8vo. Original dark brown cloth lettered in gilt and with inset red image to upper cover.
A first person account by John Ferguson of his friend Edwin Lawrence's brutal murder, the beautiful woman who dropped through his window on the same night and the subsequent quest to solve the murder.
Detective Fiction
London, New York, Toronto, Hodder & Stoughton, 1913.
First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth lettered in black to upper cover, spine lettered in gilt. Dust-jacket with inset colour illustration.
An early, rare example of a dust-jacket featuring artwork seemingly solely commissioned for the jacket, rather than repeating a frontispiece or plate from the book. This was an important time of transition for dust-jackets, moving away first from the disposable, purely advertorial type and then those that just repeated an internal design.
Writing in Twentieth-Century Crime and Mystery Writers (London, 1980), Daniel P. King noted "In the mystery genre, [Mason] made ample use of the psychological element - and in doing so, was in advance of his time."
Detective Fiction
London, Gollancz, 1933.
First edition. 8vo. Original black cloth lettered in red. Printed yellow dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
A very good first edition of John Cecil Masterman's first novel, a murder myster set against a backdrop of Oxford academia, starting a trend soon taken up by Gollancz stablemates Michael Innes and Edmund Crispin, and further down the line perhaps Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse books...