BOOTHBY, Guy. Love Made Manifest. London, Ward Lock [1899]. Octavo publisher's decorated blue cloth blocked in gilt. Endpapers a bit browned as usual, a pleasing bright copy. Au$125
First edition. From Apia to Sydney to Belgrave Square our hero wins his way to fame and fortune only to find a peril worse than any of Boothby's opium addled Asiatic fiends lying in wait for him.
SAVILE, Frank. Beyond the Great South Wall - being some surprising details of the voyage of the S.Y. Racoon. London, Sampson Low &c 1899. Octavo publisher's illustrated red cloth blocked in black, white, gilt and blue (spine a bit faded and rubbed); [6],302pp and 10pp publisher's list included in the last gathering. A bit used, browning of the endpapers and round the edges. Inscription of a Lawrence Fishburn dated 1916 and 1917 on the front endpaper with a short message written in some secret code. Pretty good; as this is the only copy I've found after some years of looking I can't compare it to others. Au$1500
First edition and close enough to rare. George Locke noted in the first volume of his Spectrum of Fantasy (1980) that he'd traded his way up to a good first American edition but not yet seen this. At the end of volume two he announced that, in 1993, he'd seen and finally got one. These original sheets were re-issued as an undated 'cheap edition' with a cancel title page and, I suspect, sat in the warehouse for decades - the only copy of that I've seen was apparently bought new and given as a prize in 1927. In other words it was a forgotten dud. How? with that cover? who could resist it? It seems to have been better received in America where it had two editions in 1901 and received a friendly notice in the NY Times.
This is an Antarctic adventure discovering a now extinct Mayan civilization and a not extinct prehistoric monster. By no means the worst lost race novel ever written; indeed it stands proud of most Antarctic novels in being brisk, breezy and easy going.
Lightning Robber. : [Inazuma Goto : Sakamoto Keijiro]. Tokyo, Sanshindo 1899 (Meiji 32*). 21x14cm, publisher's colour illustrated wrapper; three double page illustrations. The wrapper and last leaf (this was not issued with a back wrapper, an advertisement leaf was joined to a stub of the cover and spine) have been repaired but I'm not sure how much. It is so near invisible. An excellent, fresh copy in a chic case by binder, writer and fastidious collector Atsuo Ikuta. Au$250
Third edition, three months after the first. The Lightning Robber - Inazuma Goto, the title of this book - was Sakamoto Keijiro, arrested in February1899 after escaping jail in 1895, a lot of robberies and three murders. This was the stuff of sensation mongering of course, plays were performed in 1897 and 1899. In 1899 four or more books called Lightning Robber appeared; that is, I found four titles but I don't know how many of them are different books.
This seems to have 24 more pages than what is likely the first edition, published by Kinshindo, and either uses the same sheets or was printed from the same plates.
*But. Those extra pages finish with his death in February 1900, months after the date on the colophon printed on the other side of the same page. Can publishers ever be trusted?
The Lightning Robber was conflated with the previous decade's Pistol Robber and one of our four or so books shows him in bowler and overcoat firing at a policeman. Japan's first feature film, 'Pisutoru Goto Shimizu Sadakichi' (pistol robber Shimizu Sadakichi) but also called 'Inazuma Goto', appeared the same year.
Worldcat does not find this version and none of their four titles are found outside Japan.
GRIFFITH, George. Gambles With Destiny. London, F.V. White 1899. Octavo publisher's cloth (tips a little worn). Endpapers spotted, a pretty good copy with Ronald E. Graham's Virgil Finlay bookplate. Au$185
First edition of this collection of shorter things, mostly sci-fi or fantasy - one of which introduces the countdown: 10, 9, 8 ...; another involves a Faustian bargain made with haschisch.
GRIFFITH, George. Brothers of the Chain. London, White 1900. Octavo publisher's grained cloth blocked in gilt and black. A rather good, bright copy of a book that usually hasn't aged gracefully. Au$325
First edition, second issue with a cancel title; copies are known to exist with the title dated 1899, but not many. The colonial edition though is dated 1899. One of Griffith's baroque thrillers of particular interest to us in the Pacific. "In the triple-walled fastness of the Central Prison on Ile Nou, in New Caledonia there exists, so those who should know, say, the head centre of the most mysterious and the most terrible secret society in which men, or rather fiends in human form, ever bound themselves together." This is not from the novel but from Griffin's Pearson's Weekly article - Griffin building a buttress of supposed fact to support his fiction. The book itself leaps around the world, from Park Lane and Paris to the seas off north Australia and New Caledonia.
Trove finds only one copy, in the Ron Graham collection at Sydney University. The non-fiction follow-up on the convicts of New Caledonia, In an Unknown Prison Land (1901), is well represented.
Aoba (ie Ihara Toshiro?). : [Kawakami Yukiyoshi : Tantei Jitsuwa]. Tokyo, Kinshindo 1900 (Meiji 33). Two volumes 22x15cm publisher's colour woodcut wrappers; full page b/w illustrations in each volume, a couple double page. Browning of the cheap paper in the second volume, not so much in the first. A couple of owner's stamps; title written in ink on the bottom edges of each. Signs of use but pretty good. Au$250
First edition of this rare true detective story; that's what the subtitle says it is (true detective, not the rare bit). This is the story of Kawakami Yukiyoshi, an army sergeant who deserted in 1880 in order to avenge his father. He became a hero and a six part novel called (more lor less), A new Story : Kawakami Yukiyoshi's Revenge by Okamoto Kisen appeared in 1881. That looks like it came came directly from a kabuki production or would soon be one.
Ihara did a run of true detective novels early in his career before he became a distinguished theatre critic and playwright.
Worldcat finds only the NDL entry and Cinii finds only two locations in Japan.
VILLER, Frederick. [Christian Sparre?]. The Black Tortoise : being the strange story of old Frick's Diamond. London, Heinemann 1901. Octavo publisher's illustrated tan cloth blocked in black, white and green. Rear endpaper removed but a nice fresh copy. Au$275
First English edition of an early piece of Nordic noir - only the rude would call it Norwegian wood. I think this is the second book of Inspector Monk, published in Norwegian in 1898, and the only one translated into English then and maybe still.
I was going to ask how it is that rich tiresome old farts like Frick always have a lovely daughter but I remember that I have a lovely daughter without being rich. Anyway, she's his niece. Still, it's a troublesome family for Monk to marry into. He's going to spend the rest of his life recovering that damn Black Tortoise. Only a few chapters in it's already been stolen three times.
Then there's the indefinably sinister young Australian: the son of Frick's old friend and rescuer from the Victorian gold fields. Frick's house is named Ballarat in honour of his halcyon days when he spent three years as "sherriff" of Ballarat and made the first part of his fortune. There's no murder but two suicides help balance the score.
The binding is so much like William Nicholson, who was published by Heinemann and designed Heinemann's logo, that I'm convinced.
WALSH, George E. The Mysterious Burglar. New York, Buckles 1901. Octavo, excellent in publisher's illustrated green cloth. Au$100
First edition. A working burglar falls in with a mysterious gentleman burglar and becomes determined to unravel his secret.
TAYLOR, William Alexander. Intermere. Columbus, XX. Century Pub. Co. 1901-1902. Octavo publisher's grey cloth; 148pp, frontispiece portrait. An inserted publisher's card advertising the book has made a faint brown patch on the title but this copy is pretty well as new. Au$250
First edition. An Antarctic lost race race utopian thriller. Again a ship, or in this case yacht, is enveloped in fog; comes a mighty storm and the narrator finds himself in an unknown land. Intermere is populated by a physically, mentally, scientifically and socially advanced race.
The book exists in a plethora of different coloured cloths but I don't know of any, and don't see any reason to look for, issue points.
DANIELS, Heber K. (Farquhar Edward Palliser). Dol Shackfield, a novel. London, F.V. White 1901. Octavo publisher's decorated blue cloth blocked in black. Light signs of use, an attractive copy. Au$125
First edition of a melocomic crime thriller so far unknown to Hubin. The heroine could kindly be labelled irrepressible and so she is to the extent that you might wish her secret husband did succeed in murdering her.
HUME, Fergus. The Crimson Cryptogram. A Detective Story. NY, New Amsterdam 1902. Octavo publisher's cloth (spine a bit rubbed). Quite a good copy. Au$90
First American edition, the London edition appeared in 1900. Is it an unlikely coincidence that young doctor Ellis happens to be discussing Moxton and his wife the moment his first ever patient rings the bell: Mrs Moxton to announce that her husband has been murdered? Coincidence schmoincidence, such things are beneath notice. Is it any more likely that characters in film and tv still - after years of mockery - always find a parking space right outside their destination?
JUNOR, Charles. Richard Brice, Adventurer. London, Everett 1902. Octavo publisher's decorated cloth blocked in gilt and maroon. Small, very small, hole in the spine; a bit of foxing; quite good. Au$1450
First edition of Junor's other book and rare; missed by Miller and Macartney and by Loder. Not the first appearance, a version was serialised with the title 'A Ruby from the Sea' in The Murrurundi Times and Liverpool Plains Gazette from March to November 1901. Junor's first book was, of course, 'Dead Mens' Tales' of 1898 and as he fell off a Sydney ferry and drowned while this was in the press there were no more.
Junor has aimed at an international market while keeping one foot in the home camp. The hero and narrator is Australian born but brought up in Argentina. Finding himself on the run after a misjudged coup d'etat he decides to head for London and then on to Australia. Manila is as close as he gets and long before he gets that far he has been through a multitude of perilous scrapes, subterfuges and double crosses. There is a possibility that some autobiography went into this. Maybe not the bloodshed and Spanish American war in the Philippines but many of the locations, from Argentina onwards.
Information on Junor is scant, here's what I've gleaned. According to the inquest report Junor was a South American born 37 year old journalist of North Sydney, and married. His "young and pretty" widow Minnie remarried in 1904. When he came to Australia is still mirky but his name begins to appear in Melbourne newspapers around 1890. Two pamphlets published in London in 1885 by the freethinking, and sometimes blasphemous, Progressive Publishing Co were authored by a Charles Junor. He would have been very young then but it is possible that this is our Junor; particularly since both pamphlets are in the SLNSW while only one can be traced in OCLC or Copac.
Junor was a Melbourne scribbler for newspapers until the late 1890s when he migrated to Sydney. He had occasional 'Comments of a Melbournian' published in provincial Victorian papers and stories that went into his 'Dead Mens' Tales' appeared in papers scattered all over the place. His most successful writing, in terms of exposure, were two testimonials he wrote for Clements Tonic. He had two other jobs: assistant to a politician in Melbourne and assistant secretary to the AAAS at Sydney University.
I suspect that reports of the inquest into his death are purposely close mouthed and coded - maybe loyalty to a fellow journalist - but no mortal brain can ever comprehend why and what journalists choose to report or omit. Given he was on a late Saturday night ferry to Milsons Point, was woken on arrival by a friend, stepped over the ferry rail and went into the water I'd guess he was drunk. Or given that his employer testified he was noticeably absent minded perhaps we could say he was absent minded as a newt.
A search of all the likely catalogues finds copies in the four English deposit libraries, two in Australia and one belonging to the Mormons in Utah.
DAGLESS, Thomas. The Light in Dends Wood and Other Stories. London, Greening & Co 1903. Octavo publisher's illustrated cloth blocked in black and white. Marks and splodges, a well read but decent copy. Au$485
Only edition. This would be a long forgotten book but for trumping Amanda M'Kittrick Ros, beating her 'Irene Iddesleigh' for first place in the prestigious 'Fifty Worst Books' gathered by Harry Graham for a select circle that consisted of himself, E.V. Lucas, Anthony Hope, Barry Pain, Edmund Gosse, Belloc and Frank Richardson. Graham had copies of maybe the first five titles specially bound. I still don't what volumes three and four are.
It's taken me fifteen or so years to find a copy of this and learn whether it deserves to be volume one - ahead of Irene Iddesleigh as volume two. No. It doesn't. The title story has a decent premise - half caste Anglo-Zulu youth in England unknowingly falls in love with the woman who spurned his father and drove him off to Africa. Then it gets complicated and Dagless seems unable to remember, paragraph to paragraph, whether he's writing a horror story or a crime mystery and who his main characters are. It's near senseless but it's no Amanda Ros. All four stories are consistent in that you finish them wondering what the hell happened. The other three have plenty of inter-racial lust, murder and maniacs. Don't forget the voluptuous mummy and the vampire apes.
JACKSON, Wilfrid S. Nine Points of the Law. London, John Lane 1903. Octavo publisher's illustrated cloth blocked in git, white and brown. A few spots at the edges and ends, a rather good copy. Au$165
First edition. A goodhearted thriller with a Candide-like hero dragged into action and wrongfully suspected. This appears to be Jackson's first book and his only mystery. He published a couple more novels but none seem to have set the world on fire (though his next novel 'Helen of Troy, NY' got a good notice in the NY Times) and he settled into a steady career as a translator and general man-of-letters.
CHAMBERS, Robert W. The Maids of Paradise. A novel. NY, Harpers 1903. Octavo publisher's red cloth blocked in white and green; eight plates. A remarkably bright copy. Au$65
First edition. A spy thriller set during the Franco-Prussian war involving socialists and German spies. There is also a circus thrown in with a bit of lion taming gone wrong.
PEMBERTON, Max. Doctor Xavier. NY, Appleton 1903. Octavo publisher's illustrated cloth blocked in gilt, red and white; eight plates by Greiffenhagen. Minor signs of use. Au$50
First American edition; the London edition also appeared in 1903. A Spanish Ruritanian romance, if that makes sense. The small kingdom of Cadi, its handsome prince, the innocent young English beauty, and the nefarious Doctor Xavier are at its centre.
SEVERY, Melvin L. The Darrow Enigma. New York, Dodd Mead 1904. Octavo, very good in publisher's black cloth blocked in blind and red with a small onlay (a touch rubbed); illustrations by C.D. Williams. Au$100
First edition; a laboured locked room mystery. I came across a relatively recent defence mounted by Severy's great grand-daughter against ridicule of Severy's science and his unlikely invention of a lawyer-chemist hero. First she pointed out that Severy was a successful inventor whose science was sound; then that she was herself a lawyer-chemist.
CARLING, John R. The Viking's Skull. Boston, Little Brown 1904. Octavo publisher's illustrated green cloth printed in colours; four plates. An excellent, bright copy. Au$100
First edition of this convoluted, unfair, mildly occult thriller. "An ingeniously constructed plot, which tells how Idris Marville, true Earl of Ormsby recovered a treasure hidden by one of his progenitors - a Viking of the Ninth Century - and how he cleared the memory of his father, who had been wrongfully convicted of murder" - publisher's advertisement - which is both a spoiler and mostly untrue. All the detective work was done by the two beautiful women who love him. And since the spoiler is already in I can tell you that of course it's not a viking's skull. To this we add, "Yet even amidst her fear it did not escape her notice that the hand which held the weapon was small, white, and decorated with a diamond ring" (p33). Sometimes a black silk vizard is just not disguise enough. But is it a useful clue? No.
NEWKIRK, Newton. Stealthy Steve, The Six-Eyed Sleuth. His Quest of the Big Blue Diamond. A Satirical Detective Story. Boston, Luce 1904. Narrow octavo publisher's blue cloth blocked in white (a touch of white gone from the front border, quite a bit from the spine lettering); illustrations by the author. Quite a good copy. Au$50
First, presumably only, edition after its newspaper appearance; the title makes any further explanation unnecessary. Newkirk was a reasonably busy humourist and wrote a leaflet for a detective agency but I think this was the only appearance of Stealthy Steve.
DANBY, Frank. [ie Julia Frankau]. Baccarat. Philadelphia, Lippincott 1904. Octavo publisher's illustrated green cloth bocked in red, black and white (a pair of playing cards); seven colour plates (one an unlisted tailpiece). Au$50
First American edition, the London edition appeared in the same year. Frankau kept her real name for art and biography and presumably earnt her living knocking out novels as Frank Danby - she published about twenty in fourteen years. Though listed by Hubin this is not proper crime fiction but a domestic tragedy. A loving but too vivacious wife left unattended falls victim first to gambling then to the croupier. It grinds on to inevitable death and the suspense comes from whose death it will be.
STEVENSON, Burton E. The Marathon Mystery. A story of Manhattan. NY, Henry Holt 1904. Octavo publisher's decorated red cloth blocked in gilt and black (a bit marked and rubbed at tips); five colour plates by Eliot Keen. Minor signs of use but still a good, bright copy. Au$85
First edition. One of his earliest thrillers, the second I think; he churned them out fairly regularly between other books over the next forty years. Fast paced stuff starring a former police detective now reporter detective. Stevenson does try harder than most though. There is a switch from the third person to an unidentified and for a while puzzling first person; I think it would have been easy for readers of the first book. Still, it's only near the end we find out just who this narrator is and why he gets a part. And while the villain is obvious the answer isn't until the end, and then there is a twist.
The detective is Jim; his imperilled friend is Jack; our narrator doesn't have a first name. I wonder what this says about Stevenson being given the names Burton Egbert.
FITZHAMON, Lewin. The Rival Millionaires. London, Ward Lock 1904. Octavo publisher's illustrated cloth blocked in blue, black and gilt; two plates by Florence Reason. Mild signs of use, a few spots; quite good. Au$200
First edition of this uncommon thriller involving theft, fraud, impersonation, a fallen gentleman, and millionaires' daughters of course.
HILL, Frederick Trevor. The Accomplice. New York, Harper 1905. Octavo, very good in publisher's illustrated cloth blocked in red and gilt. Au$100
First edition, a thriller worked as a court room drama; described by Carolyn Wells (in her 'Technique of the Mystery Story'; 1913) as 'unusually good' despite her make an example of it for using a particularly implausible device for catching the criminal.
GREEN, Anna Katherine. The Millionaire Baby. Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill 1905. Octavo publisher's decorated cloth blocked in red and gilt; six plates by Arthur Keller. A few signs of use but a rather good bright copy. Au$80
First edition.
HORNUNG, E.W. [Ernest William]. Stingaree. NY, Scribners 1905. Octavo publishers green cloth with a mounted illustration on the front; eight plates by George Lambert. A rather good copy. Au$175
First American edition or first edition? April according to the copyright page and the reviews and advertisements. Did the English edition beat it into print? It seems unlikely - May 15 is the publisher's announcement I found. One of Hornung's relatively few proper Australian thrillers.
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