CARLING, John R. The Weird Picture. Boston, Little Brown 1905. Octavo publisher's illustrated cloth; four plates by Cyrus Cuneo. A very good copy. Au$150

First American edition, contemporaneous with the English. Not, definitely not, to be judged by its cover, this is a spendid conglomeration of mystery, neo-gothic horror, madness, murder and art.

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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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PRATT, Ambrose. Vigorous Daunt: Billionaire. London, Ward Lock 1905. Octavo publisher's illustrated cloth blocked in gilt, black red and white (some marks and smudges); frontispiece and 12 plates by Stanley L. Wood. Signs of use, a pretty decent copy. Au$225

First edition. An English gentleman on his scuppers in Berlin becomes a German spy in France, meets and is foiled by Vigorous Daunt, the Australian "mad billionaire". Daunt then, naturally, saves him from certain death on Devil's Island, recruits him as assistant and the adventures begin.

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HILL, Headon. Millions of Mischief. The story of a great secret. Akron, Saalfield 1905. Octavo publishers decorated red cloth blocked in black and white (a bit blotched). Not bad.This came from Otto Penzler's collection, he usually kept the best copy he could find and sold any lesser copies. Au$100

First published American edition? Hubin lists Transatlantic (1904) but I wonder what form that takes. The only thing by Transatlantic I can trace is an eleven page proof of another British thriller, presumably produced for copyright purposes.
Hill's publisher proudly repeated this notice from The Stage in his other books: "Not even the late Guy Boothby imagined anything more magnificently preposterous than the motive of Mr. Headon Hill's 'Millions of Mischief'".

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WALCOTT, Earle Ashley. Blindfolded. Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill 1906. Octavo publisher's illustrated cloth blocked in red, black and white; eight plates by Alice Barber Stephens. Spine a touch rubbed but a rather good copy. Au$85

First edition. A snappy murder mystery set in San Francisco involving near identical cousins - cleverer than twins, huh? - and an insanely ferocious villain. Apparently there is a torturously titled translation in Slovak published in New York in 1923. Curious. Walcott wrote a few thrillers and a paper on water supply.

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GOULD, Nat. A Straight Goer. London, John Long [1906?]. Octavo publisher's green cloth. A rather good copy. Au$150

Undoubtedly the first edition; the adverts at the end suggest that minor adjustments to Morris Miller's chronology are needed. I pity anyone who takes on a bibliography of Nat Gould; some books are advertised in boards at 2/- or cloth at 2/6; some are advertised in wrappers only.
One of Gould's Australian romps, within the first few pages we are introduced to a far flung outback station, the owner's daughter with mysterious antecedents and an unjustly accused younger son of English plutocracy. I skipped to the end in fear that Gould would have this youngish gentleman end up with his arms about the girl, who is only twelve at the start, but rightly he ends up with the faithful young woman at home who always believed in his innocence (who seems to be his first cousin). In between there are bushrangers and horses and other thrills but having reached the end I don't want to give away the middle.

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LEWIS, Alfred Henry. Confessions of a Detective. NY, Barnes 1906. Octavo publisher's decorated red cloth blocked in gilt and white; eight plates. Minor signs of use, rather good with the slightest loss of white from the spine. Au$125

First edition. The title story is an earthy account of the rise from uniform to detective in New York subtitled 'A Study in Graft'. This seems to have won the book a place in the detective guidebooks as proto-hardboiled. The rest chronicle the triumphs of Inspector Val.

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SMITH, James & John Wren SUTTON. The Secret of the Sphinx or, the Ring of Moses. London, Philip Wellby 1906. Octavo publisher's cloth blocked in black (a repair to the front hinge). Used but still a very acceptable copy. Au$600

A later issue of the only edition of this still rare Australian occult fantasy in a Rider binding; Rider took over Welby in 1908. I think this is the only novel by the journalist and Melbourne cultural luminary Smith and the only publication I can find with Sutton's name attached. Sutton was a medium, a self described "magnetopath" in one news item I found. A John Wren Sutton, sculptor, appears in more papers, including being named as co-respondent in a 1908 "painful" divorce case, and the kind note sculptor Sutton received in Smith's 'Cyclopedia of Victoria' leads me to designate them the same person.
The book received fair coverage, as far as reviews are concerned, largely on the strength of Smith's prominence and one notice claimed this as the first of a projected trilogy. Perhaps public indifference put paid to that scheme, perhaps it was the painful divorce case.
Trove now finds three copies of this in Australian libraries and Worldcat adds not many more outside the deposit libraries of Britain.

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PRATT, Ambrose. The Counterstroke. London, Ward Lock 1906. Octavo publisher's decorated cloth blocked in gilt, red and pale yellow; frontispiece and one other plate by Harold Piffard. T.P.'s Weekly's 'Private Review Copy', so stamped; front fly removed marring a bit quite a good copy. Au$125

First edition. Aristocratic members, from three nations, of the secret order of Knights of the Ninth Arch are ordered to uncover the secrets of Europe's most dangerous woman - the diabolical nihilist siren Madame Viyella. Then it gets complicated.

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OHNET, Georges. [Georges Henot]. The Poison Dealer. London, Werner Laurie [1906]. Octavo publisher's illustrated fawn cloth printed in orange, blue and white. The tan cloth darkened; signs of use, some foxing at ends and edges; not bad for a book guaranteed not to wear well. Au$300

First edition in English from his 'Marchand de Poison' (1902) and hard to find. There must be a better copy out there but I haven't found it yet. The binding is signed C.E.D. - who, thanks to Geoffrey McSkimming, I can tell you is Charles E. [Edwin?] Dawson. He specialised in flowing women for posters and advertisements. Such a woman flows around on the similar wrap-round design on Fergus Hume's 'Lady Jim of Curzon Street', also published by Werner Laurie.
There's plenty of madness and death in this book but the poison dealer is not, I'm sorry to say, a diabolical scientist or psychopathic criminal but an honest and most successful business man who manufactures absinthe and brandies. The result is just as satisfying.

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KAUFFMAN, Reginald Wright. Miss Frances Baird Detective - A Passage From Her Memoirs. Boston, Page 1906. Octavo publisher's illustrated pale blue cloth blocked in ochre, blue and black; colour frontispiece. Minimal signs of use, particularly with such foolishly vulnerable pale cloth, a nice copy. Au$300

First edition of the advent of this professional detective - she reappears in a 1910 novel. Miss Baird is young, good looking, well educated, smart but not infallible - at the start she is under a cloud with her boss for bungling a number of cases. And she works by necessity: she is behind in her rent.
A tangle of murder and twice stolen jewels is unravelled here, with a plot twist that was echoed sixty odd years later by P.D. James in a thriller that also stars a young woman detective scratching to pay her rent.

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DANE, John Colin. Champion. NY, Dillingham 1907. Octavo, very good in publisher's red cloth with mounted colour illustration; eight plates. Au$125

First American edition - the English is contemporaneous - of an anthropomorphic racing thriller with plenty of dark deeds and a moustachioed, possibly even half-Spanish, villain. The narrator, Champion, is a revolutionary new racing car.

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GORON, M.F. The Truth About the Case ... edited by Albert Keyzer. Philadelphia, Lippincott 1907. Octavo, excellent in publisher's illustrated cloth blocked in red and black; illustrations by Arthur G. Dove. Au$120

First edition in English. Ostensibly taken from the diaries of the ex-Chief of the Paris Surete; there were a few of these memoirs published under his name in French - but read it only as detective fiction.

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THANET, Octave [ie Alice French]. The Lion's Share. Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill 1907. Octavo, very good in publisher's decorated cloth blocked in gilt and black; illustrations by E.M. Ashe. Au$125

First edition; apparently her only detective novel. On a west bound train and in San Francisco there's treachery and murder afoot among the overprivileged, fueled by money and revenge. Of course, come early Wednesday morning, April 18, San Francisco decides to fall down and burst into flame and the villain and his hired mafiosi move in for the kill. The earthquake must win overall body count but villain and hero play their part in the final score.
There is now a small but keen Alice French industry trying, thanks to her gender and sexual preference, to sift something worthwhile from the muck of her class and race supremacy and anti-suffragette determination. I found no mention of this frivolous thriller but, I say, she deserves notice for her daring use of the San Francisco earthquake as such a minor character so soon after it happened.

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GREEN, Anna Katherine. The Mayor's Wife. Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill 1907. Octavo publisher's decorated cloth with onlaid colour illustration; seven plates by Alice Barber Stevens. A rather good, bright copy. Au$100

First edition of a later, but by no means last, thriller by the early, but not first, woman writer of detective fiction.

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MANSON, Marsden. The Yellow Peril in Action. A possible chapter in history. Privately published, San Francisco, January 1907. Octavo publisher's printed wrapper; 32pp (including two blank leaves at the end), folding map. Au$125

A salutary piece of yellow peril literature, this is the history of the war between the USA and China - with help from Japan - in 1910. I can tell you now it didn't end well for America. Manson was the San Francisco City Engineer during the immediate post earthquake years and some of his predilection for technical detail has crept in here. This understandable desire to reinforce polemic with fact is the mark of the amateur and usually the reason why such tales are forgotten but Manson hasn't tried to disguise his aim with fiction: a fair bit is straightforward xenophobic agitprop.
I wonder how much the cataclysm of the San Francisco earthquake and fire had to do with this but I find no direct mention. Is it odd that it went to press so soon after the quake - Manson's preface is dated December 1906 - without a word? Did Manson think the shock of the quake was a good prompt for a battered public to take notice of an even greater threat? Certainly there was a movement to push the Chinese out of central San Francisco as rebuilding began. Was this a misguided bit of timing that guaranteed his book would be ignored?

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TURNER, George Frederic. The Toad and the Amazon. London, Ward Lock 1907. Octavo publisher's decorated cloth blocked in white and gilt (minor signs of use, a little white gone from the spine); frontispiece and one other plate. A pretty good copy. Au$250

First edition. I'm not sure why Turner's books have disappeared so thoroughly. The style is a bit precious but no more than most of his contemporaries and the repartee is often witty and amusing. The necessary conceit - or gimmick - to keep us reading: a pair of society gentlefolk disguise themselves to follow their passion - boxing - might seem ordinary until we discover that one is a beautiful young woman.
In case our interest flags, cut to the meeting of the high society Entomophagites where the abolition of section C of Rule 15 is being argued. Section C is the requirement that any outsider who stumbles over or into the Entomophagites is summarily executed. Needless, maybe, to say, our hero is going to be lured into blundering into the Entomophagite stronghold by his rival for the beautiful Amazon.
Turner, a London architect, published a decent number of novels between 1906 and 1920, most with some thrilling or macabre twist, and all apparently sank with barely a ripple. He seems near review free, and this from a major fiction publisher.

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HILL, Headon. Unmasked at Last. NY, Fenno [1907?]. Octavo publisher's illustrated ochre cloth; frontispiece and two plates. A bright copy. Au$165

First American edition, soon after the English. An imprisoned counterfeiter's son is taken on as assistant gamekeeper by a thorough blackguard with a mysterious French master. But nothing is as it seems ... to start with, is the counterfeiter's son a counterfeit?

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RINEHART, Mary Roberts. The Circular Staircase. Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill 1908. Octavo publisher's illustrated dark olive cloth blocked in red and black. An outstanding copy. Au$350

Her first book and one of her most successful thrillers, later dramatised and renovelised as The Bat.

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TRAIN, Arthur. True Stories of Crime, from the District Attorney's Office. NY, Scribner 1908. Octavo illustrated navy cloth blocked in green and warm red; photo plates. Several bookshop stamps and the murderous bookplate of Harry Bateson. Au$30

Ostensibly true cases.

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WATSON, H.B. Marriott. The Devil's Pulpit. NY, Dodd Mead 1908. Octavo publisher's illustrated cloth blocked in red blue and green; frontispiece. The last couple of pages roughly opened (the first reader impatient to read the last page); a rather good, bright copy. Au$125

First American edition, or first edition? After some rigorous and dangerous detective work I can now tell the world that this and 'The Golden Precipice' (Cassell 1908) are the same book. They aren't connected in the references I've found. A treasure hunting romp on a tramp steamer down the Carribean way with mutiny, skullduggery, villains and a lovely girl on board.

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APPLETON, G.W. [George Webb]. The Down Express. London, Long 1908. Octavo publisher's red cloth titled in gilt and black. Mildly used, a pretty good copy. Au$125

First edition of this thriller revolving around fraud, imposition, long lost deeds to a mine and the long lost heiress to those deeds.

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MITFORD, C. Guise. The Paxton Plot. London, John Long 1908. Octavo publisher's decorated cloth blocked in gilt, black and orange. Some foxing, a bright copy. Au$90

First edition of this thriller of a socialist revolutionary plot masterminded by a woman. This is known, but is it the old Miss Delaval or her charming niece, the young Miss Delaval? Our hero is "half vagabond, half Bohemian" yet by instinct a rigid Tory.

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ROSENKRANTZ, Baron Palle. The Magistrate's Own Case. London, Methuen 1908. Octavo publisher's red cloth decorated in gilt (spine a little discoloured); 32pp publisher's list for 1911 at the end - clearly not a fast seller, this book. Prize inscription for spelling on the front fly; quite a good copy. Au$165

First English edition of this thriller which, despite what the Encyclopedia of Nordic Crime Fiction says, is not a translation of Mordet i Vestermarie (1902), Denmark's first detective novel. This particular Danish crime is the murder of an English lord in Germany and the magistrate is German, most cosmopolitan. Rosenkrantz was maybe Denmark's busiest writer in the early 20th century - he had to support a noble's lifestyle which had already seen him in trouble when he was arrested for misuse of public funds and bankrupted.

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CLEGG, Thomas Bailey. The Bishop's Scapegoat. Londo, John Lane 1908. Octavo publisher's illustrated cloth blocked in gilt black and cream. Minor signs of use, a bit canted; quite good. Au$350

First, probably only, edition of Ballarat bred Clegg's thriller murder melodrama mostly set in New Caledonia. Clegg was a journalist, lawyer and magistrate who in the eighties had investigated the penal system in New Caledonia and the indentured labour industry in Queensland. The cane fields found their way into his 1907 novel 'The Wilderness' and New Caledonian prisoners into this.
It may be a spoiler but I'll tell you anyway: the men on the front cover are the Bishop of Capricornia who murdered his brother-in-law in Paris and the Frenchman sentenced for that murder. But rest easy, there is a twist.

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