September 2024: Private Eye & Detective Stories

The Maltese Falcon

Book collectors investigated Private Eye and Detective Stories for the September 2024 meeting.  Some collectors were able to show first appearances of the earliest detectives and private investigators while others presented some of the most recent amateur and professional sleuths.  Some of the books featured iconic mystery solvers such as C. Auguste Dupin, Sherlock Holmes, Charlie Chan, Sam Spade, and Mike Hammer.  Newer titles introduced contemporary sleuths such as Ruth Galloway and Maisie Dobbs.

In addition to the fiction stories themselves, collectors also offered some reference works on crime stories, detective fiction, and their authors including a history of detective-crime short stories, a catalogue of detective fiction, a biography of Arthur Conan Doyle, and a comprehensive bibliography of Doyle's works.

Fiction

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" in
Graham's Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine

Poe, Edgar A.  "The Murders in the Rue Morgue."  Graham's Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine, Volume 18, Number 4, April 1841, 166-179.  A magazine originally issued in monthly numbers, here bound in leather with gilt tooling by the original subscriber of the period.  Many of Poe’s stories were originally published in magazine form and later collected into book form in Tales.  "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" appeared in print for the first time in the April 1841 issue of Graham's Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine, creating a red-letter date by introducing the world’s first detective story, in the full modern sense, and the rise of a new genre, the detective story.  Poe's amateur detective, C. Auguste Dupin, makes his first appearance in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue."

Issue title page and first text page of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue"

Poe's Tales

Poe, Edgar A.  Tales.  New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1845.  First Edition.  Rebound in red Morocco with gilt tooling.  Copies in the original publisher’s binding are extremely rare.  Tales contains all three C. Auguste Dupin detective stories, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," "The Mystery of Marie Roget," and "The Purloined Letter."

Tales title page and table of contents

The Sign of Four

Doyle, Arthur Conan.  The Sign of Four.  London: John Murray and Jonathan Cape, 1974.  Introduction by Graham Greene.  Uncorrected proof copy in wraps with proof dust jacket noting a provisional publication date of 10 January 1974, for The Sherlock Holmes Collected Edition series.  The Sign of Four was first published in 1890; it is the second Sherlock Holmes novel following A Study in Scarlet (1887).  In his introduction, Greene recounts how he first read The Sign of Four at the age of ten, and how memorable the book remains to him.  Greene contrasts The Sign of Four with A Study in Scarlet, to highlight the development of Doyle's imagination and writing style.

Uncorrected proof wraps and dust jacket

The Black Camel

Biggers, Earl Derr.  The Black Camel.  New York: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers, 1929.  This reprint edition was published the same year at the Bobbs-Merrill 1929 first edition.  The Black Camel is the fourth of the Charlie Chan novels.  Charlie Chan, one of the most iconic investigators of detective fiction, was inspired by real-life detective Chang Apana of the Honolulu Police Department.  Biggers read about Apana's exploits during his 34-year service to the HPD while on vacation in Hawaii in 1920.  Charlie Chan first appeared in 1925 in The House Without a Key. 

The Maltese Falcon

Hammett, Dashiell.  The Maltese Falcon.  New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1930.  First edition.  The story was originally serialized in five parts in Black Mask magazine between 1929 and 1930 before being published in book form.  The Maltese Falcon is the first and only Sam Spade novel, though the character does appear in four subsequent short stories.  The story is generally regarded as the first private eye novel, and Spade is considered the archetype for the hardboiled detective.

The Maltese Falcon

Hammett, Dashiell.  The Maltese Falcon.  Shelton, CT: The First Edition Library and Otto Penzler Books, 1993.  A facsimile edition of the Alfred A. Knopf 1930 first edition with a reproduction dust jacket and custom slipcase.

Farewell, My Lovely

Chandler, Raymond.  Farewell, My Lovely.  Sheldon, CT: The First Edition Library, 1990.  A facsimile of the Alfred A. Knopf 1940 first edition.  Chandler's protagonist, Philip Marlowe, is a tough, hard drinking but morally upright private eye.  Farewell, My Lovely is the second of seven Philip Marlowe novels, following The Big Sleep (1939).  Marlowe also appears in one Chandler short story and a posthumously published unfinished novel.

I, the Jury

Spillane, Mickey.  I, the Jury.  Sheldon, CT: The First Edition Library, 1996.  A facsimile of the Dutton 1947 first edition.  I, the Jury is the first of 13 Mike Hammer novels written by Spillane from 1947 through 1996, along with four short stories published from 1998 through 2004.  After Spillane's death in 2006, Max Allan Collins, his friend and literary executor, edited and completed his unpublished and unfinished works, including 11 Mike Hammer stories.

The Death Dealers

Asimov, Isaac.  The Death Dealers.  New York: Avon Publications, 1958.  First edition.  The Death Dealers was Asimov's first full-length non-science fiction mystery story.  A university chemistry professor becomes an amateur detective when a research student dies while conducting an experiment, and he must prove it was murder without raising the suspicions of the police, who would consider him a prime suspect.  The book was later republished as A Whiff of Death, Asimov's preferred title.  In 1976, A Whiff of Death was reprinted together with Asimov's metafiction Murder at the ABA, his only other non-science fiction mystery.

The Neon Rain

Burke, James Lee.  The Neon Rain.  New York: Henry Holt, 1987.  First edition.  The Neon Rain is the first of 24 Dave Robicheaux novels published from 1987 through 2024.  In this first book, Robicheaux is a homicide detective with the New Orleans Police Department who stumbles into a murder investigation when he discovers a body while fishing on a local bayou.  He is a recovering alcoholic and living with major depressive order.  As the series progresses, Robicheaux leaves the NOPD for the Iberia Parish Sheriff's Office in Southcentral Louisiana.  This copy is personally inscribed to the collector by James Lee Burke.

Maisie Dobbs

Winspear, Jacqueline.  Maisie Dobbs: A Novel.  New York: Soho Press, 2003.  First edition.  Maisie Dobbs is a psychologist and private investigator building her own private practice as a woman in post-World War I London.  The book earned Winspear the 2003 Agatha Award for Best First Novel and the 2004 Macavity Award for Best First Mystery Novel.  Maisie Dobbs is the first of 18 books in the eponymous series published between 2003 and 2024.

The Crossing Places

Griffiths, Elly.  The Crossing Places.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2010.  First published in 2009.  Elly Griffiths is the pen name for Domenica de Rosa.  The British novelist has written four mystery series under this name, including the Ruth Galloway series.  Dr. Ruth Galloway is a forensic anthropologist and university professor who is called in by the local police to help identify the bones of a child found on a nearby beach.  The Crossing Places is the first of 15 books in the Galloway series published between 2009 and 2023.  In each story in the series, Galloway's expertise is required when a new body or set of remains is discovered.

The Norfolk Mystery

Sansom, Ian.  The Norfolk Mystery.  London: Fourth Estate 2014.  First published in 2013, The Norfolk Mystery is the first book in The Country Guides detective series.  The series is set in 1930s England, and this first story begins with a murder of a vicar in Norfolk found hanging from the rope of a church bell.    There are 39 books in The Country Guides series, which traverses scenic England as its protagonist detectives solve murder mysteries throughout the country.

 

Nonfiction

Queen's Quorum

Queen, Ellery.  Queen's Quorum: A History of the Detective-Crime Short Story as Revealed by the 106 Most Important Books Published in this Field since 1845.  Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1951.  First Edition.  Ellery Queen is a pseudonym for the detective fiction writing team of Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee.  Ellery Queen is also a fictional detective of Dannay and Lee's creation.  Dannay and Lee grew the moniker into a brand associating the name Ellery Queen with the highest quality in, and expertise on, detective fiction through its extensive publications in the genre.  Queen's Quorum is an example of these expert publications.  Number One on Queen’s Quorum is Poe’s Tales of 1845 which contains for the first time in book form all three C. Auguste Dupin stories.  As such, Poe’s Tales is a cornerstone in detective fiction being historically important, of superior literary quality, and a rare book in the first edition form.  (See a first edition of Tales above.)

Victorian Detective Fiction

Greene, Graham and Dorothy Glover.  Victorian Detective Fiction: A Catalogue of the Collection Made by Dorothy Glover & Graham Greene.  London: The Bodley Head, 1966.  Preface by Graham Greene, Introduction by John Carter, and Note by Eric Osborne.  Limited edition of 500 copies signed by Dorothy Glover, Graham Greene, and John Carter. 

Graham Greene and Dorothy Glover, his mistress at the time, began collecting first editions of detective stories in 1939.  After their sexual relationship fizzled, they remained friends and collecting partners; their collecting spanned twenty years.  The collection begins, chronologically, in 1846 with Poe's Tales and ends abruptly 1901 upon the death of Queen Victoria (thus, only the early Sherlock Holmes stories are included).  Glover and Greene amassed a collection of 471 detective stories published around the world during this period, making it one of the most comprehensive collections known at the time.  Their catalog was published in 1966 and quickly became—and remains—one of the definitive bibliographic resources of the genre.  It is still referenced by cataloguers and booksellers today.

Together with an exchange of correspondence regarding typing the catalog. 

Letters between Josephine Reid and Jean Frampton

Josephine Reid, Greene's secretary, reached out to a typist recommended by John Carter to type out Glover's handwritten catalog.  The typist replies she does not feel qualified for the job and does not have the needed bracket marks on either of her typewriters.  The typist was Jean Frampton, who typed the manuscripts for many of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels.  The letters were exchanged between 24 July and 27 July 1962, early in the private catalog's development into a published book.

Conan Doyle: His Life and Art

Pearson, Hesketh.  Conan Doyle: His Life and Art.  Taplinger Publishing Company, 1977.  Introduction by Graham Greene.  Conan Doyle: His Life and Art was first published in 1943 at which time Greene wrote a book review published The Spectator.  Pearson's book was rereleased in 1977 with Greene's original review serving as an introduction entitled "The Poker Face."  Greene praises Pearson for getting behind the stoic façade—the poker face—of Arthur Conan Doyle to reveal the "pleasant human being" portrayed in this biography.  Pearson traces Doyle's extraordinary life, which he claims could rival Doyle's own fiction, and explores Doyle's friendships and relationships, particularly with his medical school professors, and shows how these people became characters in his Sherlock Holmes stories.  This copy is a review copy with a review slip loose laid in.

A Bibliography of A. Conan Doyle

Green, Richard Lancelyn and John Michael Gibson.  A Bibliography of A. Conan Doyle.  Oxford: Clarendon Press / Oxford University Press, 1983.  Foreword by Graham Greene.  First edition.  Green and Gibson offer the most comprehensive bibliography of the works of Arthur Conan Doyle ever published with the noted exception of translations.  The guide is divided into five sections: (1) works of fiction; (2) miscellaneous works (speeches, letters, etc.); (3) minor contributions (prefaces, forewords, etc.); (4) periodical and newspaper contributions; and, (5) biographical sources (interviews, reports of speeches, etc.).  The tome also includes seven appendices of related materials.  The reference work is peppered with notes from the compilers which provide insight into the inspiration and motivation, publication history, and other personal stories behind Doyle's works.  Graham Greene in his introduction highlights the compilers' notes as "fascinating" and exhibits how they inform and inspire even the most seasoned collector.