Crime of the Fictional Variety

The Last of Lysandra – Elizabeth Fenwick

A very good Gollancz, yellow jacket thriller. A first of type published 1973. Octavo, 160 pages in very good condition or better.

More strange characters than “Midsummer Murders” … we are promised a hidden menace lurking behind respectable facades … and we get it.

Who is lurking behind your façade?

$25.00

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The Lost City – By Major Charles Gilson – 1920′s

Another adventure by Charles Gilson in striking pictorial covers published in the 1920’s. Gilson has been promoted since he wrote “On Secret Service”. Another Voyager favourite.

Published by “The Boy’s Own Paper”, Bouverie Street, London. Octavo, 378 pages with frontispiece in colour and eight other illustrations.

The longer title, as usual, gives a clue … “The Lost City … being the Authentic Account by Professor Miles Unthank of the search for the Sarcophagus of Serohis, and the Theft of the Mystic Scarab, formerly in the British Museum”. We love it!

Collectable … The Lost City

$70.00

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Studies in Murder – Edmund Pearson

An unusual Modern Library edition given the factual content. A nice 1950′s copy with slightly chipped dust jacket. Top edge stained blue to match jacket as required.

True crime by American criminologist Pearson famous for his analysis of the Lizzie Borden Murders and the Hauptmann Case. We have catalogued it also under fiction because of his easy story telling style

Edmund Lester Pearson (1880-1937) was a highly regarded write of real crime … he was also a librarian to Congress which is why he had time to research and write no doubt!

Person Understood the motive …

$40.00

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The Strand Magazine – with an Arthur Conan Doyle First Publication – 1898

A complete volume of the Strand Magazine being January to June 1898 in very good condition in the original green leather binding with elaborate gilt design and titling to spine.

As would be expected many interesting period articles, stories and the likes .. one on Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) by Beatrice Hatch is rather special.

The “piece that cannot be resisted” is a first publication of the short story by Arthur Conan Doyle … “The Story of the Beetle-Hunter” which was later published in a collection of short stories “Round the Fire” in 1908. The story, which runs to ten pages, contains eight illustrations by Archibald S Hattrick (1864-1950).

Conan Doyle First and More in Very Good Condition.

$140.00

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The Complete Works of Francois Villon – Translated by J.U. Nicolson – Illustrated by Alexander King – Fine First Editions 1928

Superior two volume set published by Covici, New York in May 1928 part of limited set of 960 this copy numbered 427 signed by the translator J.U. Nicolson. Typography by C. McMurtie.

Royal Octavo 809 pages all up after preliminaries. A near fine set rich red cloth covered boards with gilt title to spine and front unmarked, fully protected by complete heavy black dust jackets with a slight edge crease and a small closed tear. Top edge rich gilt very clean internally pages bright as new. Dust jackets nearly always missing with this set. Lovely full page sepia-tone illustrations as frontispiece and throughout the volumes. A heavy set near 3 kgs so may require some extra postage dependent on your location.

The volumes are set out side by side original French and English translation. Villon (1431 to c1463) by far the best-known French poet of the late Middle Ages, a renowned and shady character whose verses chronicle his escapades. He was born in Paris and disappeared from “historical” view in 1463. He had multiple encounters with the law. His real name may have been Francois de Montcorbier or Francois des Loges. Whatever, his nom de plume “Villon”’ appears everywhere in his writing. His work suggests he was born into poverty and raised by a foster father (from whom he adopted the name Villon). He was bright and received qualifications from the University of Paris at an early age. His first real skirmish with the law came in 1455 when he “accidentally” killed a man during a scuffle. He was banished and then pardoned when evidence was produced that the dead party had forgiven him before the lights went out. Shortly afterwards he was involved in a serious robbery and after various complexities was banished and wandered the country supposedly as part of a gang of thieves. In 1461, he spent the “summer” in the Bishop’s prison at Meung-sur-Loire and dodgey things went on from there.

All of this makes for interesting poetic accounts of life as Villon experienced it. Le Testament written in 1461 is regarded as his greatest work, His work is sprinkled with mystery and hidden jokes and include much slang from the underworld he inhabited. His texts include the real names of many influential people of the time … the rich, royal officials, lawyers, police and prostitutes. The most quoted refrain “Mais ou sont les neiges d’antan?” (Where are the snows of yester-year?) comes from the Ballade des dames du temps jadis and has been quoted from Rossetti to the hit TV program Downton Abbey. We cannot write about Villon’s influence in Film, Theatre, Poetry etc. as we would be here all year!

All of Villon in French and English in Fine Presentation.

$180.00

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The Antiquity of Man – Arthur Keith – 2 Volumes (Piltdown Man)

1928 edition by Sir Arthur Keith’s first published 1925 as a single volume. Reviewed and enhanced.

A famous work in that it includes several chapters on the greatest scientific hoax ever … The Piltdown Man … there should be a BBC mini-series on this crime. Charles Dawson discovered the skull fragments that were to provide the “missing link” between apes and man. He was then assisted by the distinguished Dr Smith Woodward. In this book Keith is not sure at all and his chapter headed “The difficulties of reconstruction” alludes to error and alternative interpretations and perhaps even the reality. The reality was exposed in1953 when the bones were found to have consisted of the mandible and some teeth of an orangutan combined with the cranium of a small brained modern human. Grafton Elliot Smith a fellow anthropologist sided with Dawson and Woodward at the Royal Society claiming that Keith’s views were motivated by ambition. Keith later recalled “Such was the end of our long friendship”.

Whilst Piltdown makes the book special there are other excellent anthropological finds well written up, not the least being the Pleistocene skull found at Talgai (near Warwick Queensland) in 1884 but brought out of a cupboard in 1914 and properly categorised by Sir T.W. Edgeworth David …. Robert Etheridge also had a hand.

Much could be said about the author Sir Arthur Keith whose interest in the origins of man stemmed from being put in charge of the Museum of the Royal Society of Surgeons at an early age.

We have included an image of the painting of key players investigating the skull of Piltdown Man … Arthur Keith is seated in the middle with Dawson and Smith Woodward standing behind him to the right …. note a painting of Charles Darwin on the wall behind the group.

Early Man and Piltdown examined but not exposed

$90.00

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The Last of Lysandra – Elizabeth Fenwick

The Lost City – By Major Charles Gilson – 1920′s

Studies in Murder – Edmund Pearson

The Strand Magazine – with an Arthur Conan Doyle First Publication – 1898

The Complete Works of Francois Villon – Translated by J.U. Nicolson – Illustrated by Alexander King – Fine First Editions 1928

The Antiquity of Man – Arthur Keith – 2 Volumes (Piltdown Man)

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