A selection of recent acquisitions and discoveries! Including detective fiction, weird fiction and literature set abroad.
Weird & Supernatural
London, Burns Oates & Washbourne Ltd, 1928.
Early jacketed edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth lettered in gilt. Dust-jacket.
A rare jacketed issue of this important work by Father Benson, lauded in his own day as one of the leading figures in English literature, having written the notable novel Lord of the World (1907). This collection of supernatural horror stories, originally published in various periodicals and later collected in book form, examines "that horrible sense of silence round about us, in which dreadful forces are alert and watching us."
Horror & Gothic
A Mystery
London, Skeffinton & Son, 1898.
Fourth edition. 8vo. Title printed in red & black, frontispiece and 3 plates, patterned endpapers. Original dark pictorial cloth lettered in gilt & black.
An early edition, in very good condition, of the author's most well-known title, a classic of Gothic horror.
"In 'The Beetle' Marsh introduces the supernatural entity known variously as 'The Oriental', 'The Woman of Songs' or 'The Beetle'. This malignant, deformed creature is inhabited by the soul of an ancient Egyptian princess...[and] can turn at will into an insect, or alternatively into a man or a woman or an enigmatic amalgam of both." - Richard Dalby, Book and Magazine Collector No. 163 (1997).
Detective Fiction
and other stories of the Principality
London, Grant Richards, [1931].
First edition. 8vo. Original red cloth lettered in black to spine. Dust-jacket, correctly priced at 7/6.
A very good first edition of this compilation of thrilling tales set in Monte Carlo.
Detective Fiction
London, Hodder & Stoughton, [1926].
First edition. 8vo. 8pp. advertisements at end. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced at 7/6.
A rare book in the original first issue dust-jacket, with striking artwork.
Detective Fiction
London, Thornton Butterworth, 1930.
First edition. 8vo. 1p. advertisements. Original green cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced at 7/6.
A tale of espionage, romance and Eastern exoticism, set just before the outbreak of WWI. An excellent copy.
Detective Fiction
London, Elkin Mathews and Marrot, 1931.
First edition. 8vo. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced at 7s6d.
An attractively stylised jacket by D.V. Barry, on a murder mystery by American adventurer, stage actress, novelist and screenwriter Virginia Tracy.
![Anahareo [aka Gertrude Bernard]. My Life with Grey Owl](https://lycanthiabooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/82514-300x399.jpg)
![Alternative view of Anahareo [aka Gertrude Bernard]. My Life with Grey Owl](https://lycanthiabooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/82514_2-300x399.jpg)
Modern Literature
London, Peter Davies, 1940.
First edition. 8vo. Frontispiece portrait, plates. Original cloth. Photographic dust-jacket, priced 8s6d.
A scarce find in the dust-jacket. The book chronicles Anahareo's adventures with the faux apache 'Grey Owl' as they travelled along the waterways of Northern Ontario, having met in Canada when she was 19. Not to be confused with the later Devil in Deerskins: My Life with Grey Owl, which is written after she had purportedly become aware that Grey Owl was in fact an Englishman named Archibald Stansfeld Belaney... Anahareo did not achieve the same fame as Grey Owl, but she played an important role in the conservation and animal rights movement, something she had been passionate about throughout her life.
Detective Fiction
A Study of the Detective Story
London, Wm Collins Sons & Co Ltd, 1931.
First edition. Large 8vo. Original black cloth lettered in red with red top-stain to text block. Dust-jacket with wraparound photographic artwork, correctly priced at 7/6.
First edition, described by Ellery Queen as "the most ambitious treatise on the detective story written in the, language" before Haycraft (In the Queen's Parlor, p.131).
"Despite the universal appeal of detective fiction, only recently has serious attention been paid to its technique. It is surely high time that criticism 'placed' detective fiction and officially recognised the conscientious craftsmanship that beguiles our leisure hours" (Foreword).
Detective Fiction
London, John Hamilton, [1939].
First edition. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced at 7/6.
A striking dust-jacket design on this rare work set in Malaysia, a strange blend of murder mystery and the weird, with no copies in trade at the time of listing.
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.