A selection of recent acquisitions, rediscoveries and old favourites, featuring Detective Fiction, Weird & Supernatural, Horror & Gothic and other 20th century literature.
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.
Detective Fiction
A Story of Crime by...Ex-Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard Author of "The Crime Club" [London], Collins Detective Story Club, n.d. [c.1930].First edition thus. Small 8vo. Original near-black leather over limp boards, blocked in gilt.Originally published in 1913, and the source for the 1917 film of the same name. Froëst was apparently incredibly strong, and could tear a pack of cards in half and snap a sixpence "like a biscuit"...nice.
Travel
London, William Heinemann, 1922.
First edition. 8vo. Original red cloth lettered in black. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 7/6.
This tale of diplomatic and social life on the Bosphorus, a certain number of years ago, has the exciting elements of the 'spy' story... (jacket blurb). Seemingly scarce in the jacket.
Detective Fiction
London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1939.
First edition. 8vo. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced at 7/6.
- a dead man in the bank strong room, rolls of brown paper and balls of string; empty, coffin-shaped boxes... An attractively jacketed edition of this tale by the 'Prince of Storytellers', with artwork by Bip Pares.
Detective Fiction
London & Melbourne, Ward, Lock, 1939.
First edition. 8vo. 6pp. advertisements. Original yellow cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 7/6.
Jonathan Mansel, one of Dornford Yates' most popular characters, heads a small private organisation dedicated to the detection of serious crime "by methods sadly unavailable to the regular police". Uncommon in the jacket.
War, Invasion & Spy
London, Ward, Lock, 1901.
First edition, full-page autograph inscription from the author to the blank recto of the frontispiece. 8vo. 4 plates, 12pp. advertisements. Original pictorial cloth.
An appreciative, borderline fawning, gift inscription from the trade unionist and Liberal-Labour politician, T.R. Threlfall, to the Sir George Alexander Cooper, 1st Baronet.
Detective Fiction
A Series of Stories
London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1936.
First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 3/6.
A collection of short stories by the 'Prince of Storytellers', in an attractive Bip Pares dust-jacket.
Detective Fiction
London, Aldus Publications, 1949.
First edition. 8vo. Original red boards. Dust-jacket, priced at 7/6.
A tale of fatal attraction on Fleet Street. An uncommon imprint.
Detective Fiction
London, Pawling and Ness Ltd., 1934.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. 1p. advertisements. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced at 3/6.
A rare title in the jacket: "The author served his apprenticeship to fiction in the highly imaginative school of boys' papers, and was for a time associated with the late Edgar Wallace." (jacket blurb)