TRACY, Louis. A Son of the Immortals. NY, Clode [1909]. Octavo, very good in publisher's red cloth blocked in gilt and blind; seven plates by Howard Chandler Christy. Au$65
First edition. A Balkan romp with dirty deeds, long held secrets, a hero king who is half American - or is he?; and it ends where else but in the suburbs of Denver.
HORNUNG, E.W. [Ernest William]. Mr. Justice Raffles. NY, Scribner's 1909. Octavo publisher's illustrated cloth blocked in black and orange. A rather good, bright copy Au$125
First American edition published at pretty much the same time as the London edition. Raffles' last innings. Not knowing this at the time, much was made of this being the first Raffles novel, as opposed to collection of stories.
KIRMESS, C.H. [i.e. Frank Fox?]. The Australian Crisis. London, Walter Scott 1909. Octavo red cloth (spine faded and a bit rubbed); 336pp. Cheap endpapers browned, some minor signs of use but a pretty good copy. Au$150
First edition. One of the classic yellow peril novels, this chronicles - from 1922 looking back to 1912 - the Japanese invasion of Australia, first by wile and cunnning then by war. It is of course a bit more complex, there is social turmoil and political breakdown, civil war and the abandonment, if not betrayal, of Australia by Britain. The central section of the book is the romance of the White Guard - the volunteer militia - and their guerilla warfare against the Japanese in the Northern Territory.
KIRMESS, C.H. [i.e. Frank Fox?]. The Australian Crisis. London, Walter Scott 1909. Octavo publisher's printed stiff wrapper; 336pp. A very good copy. Au$250
First edition; issued in cloth or wrappers. One of the classic yellow peril novels, this chronicles - from 1922 looking back to 1912 - the Japanese invasion of Australia, first by wile and cunnning then by war. It is of course a bit more complex, there is social turmoil and political breakdown, civil war and the abandonment, if not betrayal, of Australia by Britain. The central section of the book is the romance of the White Guard - the volunteer militia - and their guerilla warfare against the Japanese in the Northern Territory.
GULL, C. Ranger. The Woman in the Case. London, Greening 1909. Octavo publisher's illustrated cloth blocked in black and gilt; frontispiece. Signs of use, some splodges but not too serious; quite good. Au$250
First edition of this thriller containing, as hinted by the cover, an unscrupulous woman, a false accusation of murder, and a plucky loyal woman.
WALCOTT, Earle Ashley. The Open Door. A romance of mystery, time, 1905. NY, Dodd Mead 1910. Octavo, very good in publisher's illustrated grey-green cloth blocked in yellow and black (a touch rubbed); four plates. Au$125
First edition. A complicated murder mystery set in pre-quake San Francisco. It hadn't occurred to me before, the problems of San Francisco writers just after the quake with so much famous local colour and so many landmarks gone. We have a near hysterical Italian painter who has learnt to speak English with a bad French accent last seen with the city's most eligible young murdered cad who is estranged from his snide, downright malevolent, millionaire father and staying in the house of his just-returned-after-years-to-San-Francisco now imperilled cousin whose beauty ensnares and inflames the self described lawyer idler who often has to throw away his half-smoked cigar.
We have a few too many accents in this for me. It's not so much that Walcott is bad with accents; it's more like he has cast all his character roles with poor actors whose accents stray all over the map. The Greek tavern keeper sounds passably Italian; the beautiful French maid has strayed into Mexico; even the Irish cops wander off into the Balkans or somewhere. It's a sad day when a brogue can't be nailed down tight, sure t'is.
KLEIN, Charles & Arthur HORNBLOW. John Marsh's Millions. NY, Dillingham [1910]. Octavo publisher's red cloth; four plates. Some spots or splodges inside but a pretty good copy. Au$60
First edition. This is not in Hubin though it should be. A wicked and criminal conspiracy to bilk the innocent young heiress of her millions by having her declared insane. I can't find an English edition of this.
RINEHART, Mary Roberts. The Window at the White Cat. Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill 1910. Octavo publisher's olive cloth blocked in white; four plates by Arthur Keller. Slight signs of use but an uncommonly good, bright copy. Au$95
First edition of this detective thriller.
PRATT, Ambrose. The Living Mummy. NY, Stokes 1910. Octavo publisher's illustrated cloth blocked in yellow, green and grey (spine ends worn, a couple of surface scratches on the boards); four colour plates by Louis Fancher. A bit used but not a bad copy. Au$300
First American edition which I believe is the proper first edition. "It fairly out-Poes Poe in the region of weird impossibilities" (New York Times).
SERVISS, Garrett P. A Columbus of Space. NY, Appleton 1911. Octavo publisher's apple green illustrated cloth blocked in white, dark green and black; four coloured illustrations by Howard Heath, three of which are terrific. A hint of fading of the spine but a remarkably bright, fresh copy, particularly for such a vulnerable cloth colour. Au$750
First edition. A fine radioactive fuelled romp through space to the planet Venus populated naturally by extraordinary beings and beasts.
SELBORNE, John. The Thousand Secrets. London, Everett 1911. Octavo publisher's cloth with mounted colour illustration. A touch of spotting around the edges; a pleasing copy. Au$600
First edition of this thriller which surely must be the first emoji mystery. At the scenes of the crimes the villain leaves a cryptic typed smiling face. Did he or she kill only owners of typewriters or carry spares? You might be sure the killer is a he from the cover but I'd say our cover artist never tried to make such a face with a typewriter. So can they be trusted about the typist? Truth in advertising or book covers has never been desirable.
Selborne published two thrillers in 1911 and vanished. Hubin suggests that he might be Harry John Selborne Boome who turns out to have been an unmemorable London stock broker. Not much help.
"As is often the case in such tales, the criminals show far more intelligence than their pursuers," (The Adelaide Register).
WHITELAW, David. The Man with the Red Beard. A story of Moscow and London. London, Greening & Co 1911. Octavo publisher's black cloth blocked in gilt and red; four plates by Frank Wright. Edges a bit dusty, a nice bright copy. Au$125
First edition of this most uncommon thriller of intrigue, terrorism, revolutionaries, murder and villainy.
SELBORNE, John. The Thousand Secrets. London, Everett 1911. Octavo publisher's cloth with mounted colour illustration. A bit used, a bit browned; a pretty decent copy. Au$475
First edition of this thriller which surely must be the first emoji mystery. At the scenes of the crimes the villain leaves a cryptic typed smiling face. Did he or she kill only owners of typewriters or carry spares? You might be sure the killer is a he from the cover but I'd say our cover artist never tried to make such a face with a typewriter. So can they be trusted about the typist? Truth in advertising or book covers has never been desirable.
Selborne published two thrillers in 1911 and vanished. Hubin suggests that he might be Harry John Selborne Boome who turns out to have been an unmemorable London stock broker. Not much help.
"As is often the case in such tales, the criminals show far more intelligence than their pursuers," (The Adelaide Register).
MORRIS, Gouverneur. Yellow Men and Gold. NY, Dodd Mead 1911. Octavo publisher's cloth blocked in white and blind; illustrated dustwrapper with a large piece gone from the front, professionally repaired by the look of it around the edges; six duotone plates, smaller illustrations by Charles Falls. A rather good copy. Au$300
First edition of this rip-roaring thriller in which the Yellow Men are not the malevolent peril but brave, stalwart and devoted to their elected captain Bessie who, it is suggested, has a touch of Africa in her veins. Still, despite the shocking reversal of roles in a thriller of the period, there's more than enough racism to go round. Or as any character might say, "Plentee dam lacist."
The wimp in glasses on the dustwrapper looks quite like Morris.
PIDGIN, Charles Felton. The Chronicles of Quincy Adams Sawyer, Detective. Boston, Page 1912. Octavo publisher's illustrated cream cloth blocked in red and black. Illustrations by Harold James Cue. An excellent, bright copy. Au$100
First edition.
DORRINGTON, Albert. The Radium Terrors. NY, Doubleday 1912. Octavo publisher's red cloth titled in gilt and blocked in blind (mildly darkened area along the top of the front); four plates by A.C. Michael. Rather good. Au$100
First American edition. I'm not sure whether the English edition beat the American onto the market but it should have - it's rather British. A radioactive yellow peril detective thriller - the diabolical scientist here is Japanese - not a bad mix. Just a pity Dorrington didn't throw in some of his sweat soaked south east Asian settings.
WALK, Charles Edmonds. The Time Lock. Chicago, McClurg 1912. Octavo publisher's decorated cloth blocked in white and blind and a torn but mostly there dustwrapper; four colour plates by Will Grefe. Some minor signs of use but a pretty good copy. Au$150
First edition. A tale of revenge and murder set in the world of New York finance and high society, it features that wise grey badger the detective Phinneas Flint.
VANCE, Louis Joseph. The Bandbox. Boston, Little Brown 1912. Octavo publisher's illustrated mauve cloth blocked in black and white; five plates by Arthur I. Keller. Some of the white blocking gone from the front rather than the spine which is more usual; still quite a good copy. Au$50
First edition. A lively thriller revolving around jewels and false identity.
DORRINGTON, Albert. The Radium Terrors. NY, Doubleday 1912. Octavo publisher's red cloth titled in gilt and blocked in blind (spine a bit dulled or rubbed); four plates by A.C. Michael. Quite decent. Au$60
First American edition. I'm not sure whether the English edition beat the American onto the market but it should have - it's rather British. A radioactive yellow peril detective thriller - the diabolical scientist here is Japanese - not a bad mix. Just a pity Dorrington didn't throw in some of his sweat soaked south east Asian settings.
HORNUNG, E.W. [Ernest William]. Witching Hill. NY, Scribner 1913. Octavo gilt cloth; illustrations by F.C. Yohn. An excellent, bright copy. Au$150
First American edition, contemporaneous with the London edition - both arrived in February I believe.
ALDEN, Winthrop. The Lost Million. New York, Dodd Mead 1913. Octavo publisher's green cloth with onlaid colour illustration. A couple of minute flaws to the onlay but an excellent, bright copy. Au$175
First edition. An obscure, uncommon and ripe thriller with mysterious adventurers - male and female, mysterious charges, mysterious threats, exotic strangers, and mysterious, exotic, threatening strangers, all surrounding an ancient Egyptian bronze cylinder which contains a deadly secret. Hubin denotes Winthrop Alden to be the pseudonym of a distinguished author but can't help more. Winthrop Alden was a character in Henry van Dyke's 'The Ruling Passion' (1901) but there are real people with the name.
SHIEL, M.P. The Dragon. London, Grant Richards 1913. Octavo publisher's illustrated ochre cloth blocked in red and black. A couple of spots but a particularly good copy. Au$650
First edition.
JENKS, George C. & Carlyle MOORE. Stop Thief! NY, H.K. Fly 1913. Octavo publisher's illustrated cloth blocked in blue, brown and white; four colour plates by Flagg and Thayer. Inner front cracked, still a rather good copy. Au$100
First edition. The novel of Moore's play, a cops and robbers romp. The hero is the robber.
HILL, Headon. The Embassy Case. London, Ward Lock 1915. Octavo publisher's decorated cloth blocked in blind, red and gilt; frontispiece. A used but decent copy. This came from Otto Penzler's collection, he usually kept the best copy he could find and sold any lesser copies. Au$100
First edition. A common enough story: a young well bred woman slaving in demeaning circumstances to help her ne-er-do-well brother running up gambling debts in India is accosted by a sinister prince of Balkannia who hires her to impersonate an as yet unidentified lady from his country. That brings us to the end of a brief chapter one. My guess is the king's daughter. From here on it gets complicated.
FLETCHER, J.S. The Annexation Society. London, Ward Lock 1916. Octavo publisher's elaborately blocked cloth; frontispiece. Smallish blot of foxing on title page corner; a bright and pleasing copy. Au$165
First edition. Just another typical English day: the Marquis of Scraye is woken as usual by his valet with tea quickly followed by his house-stewart with news that the Tsar's Cross has vanished from the Queen's Chamber. We're all familiar with this sort of start to the day.
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