Many Voices, Many Firsts, 1874–1918
After Poe, Collins, and Dickens, detective fiction became fertile ground for many writers, some good, some bad. This section highlights many “firsts” in the genre – the first popular novel by a woman, the first runaway bestseller, the first bibliomystery, and so forth. By the late 1880s, detective fiction began to be parodied by the likes of Ambrose Bierce. In 1887, Arthur Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet, in Dorothy Sayers’s words in Haycraft’s Art of the Mystery Story, “was flung like a bombshell into the field of detective fiction,” and reversed the downward trend. Detective fiction was once again the popular favorite.
Francis Perkins. Scrope Or, The Lost Library. A Novel of New York and Hartford. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1874.
Scrope is generally considered the first American bibliomystery, defined as a mystery story that revolves around the world of libraries, booksellers, or book collectors. The plot concerns the search for and discovery of a secret library in nineteenth-century New York. Contents of the library include a First Folio and a Bay Psalm Book.
Anna Katherine Green. The Leavenworth Case: A Lawyer’s Story. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1878.
The first popular mystery written by a woman and one of the few detective novels written in the United States after Poe and before the end of the century. It also set many precedents for future detective fiction: a rich person murdered on the verge of signing a new will, the body in the library, a coroner’s inquest, testimony from expert witnesses, a map of the scene of the crime, and an explanatory chapter wrapping up the mystery. Anna Katherine Green had a long and influential writing career. Her detective in this novel is Ebenezer Gryce, a professional. A Haycraft-Queen selection.
Fergus W. Hume. The Mystery of a Hansom Cab. London: The Hansom Cab Publishing Company, 1888.
Touted as the two-hundred-thousandth printing of the second edition of likely the first runaway bestseller in detective fiction. While the fantastic and prominently displayed sales numbers may have been exaggerated by the publishers, there is no doubt that the novel was highly successful. The first Melbourne edition of 5,000 copies sold in a week. The first London edition of 25,000 copies sold in three days. Originally appearing in wrappers, this copy has been hardbound with the wrappers intact. Unfortunately for Hume, a young Australian barrister, he sold the rights for a small sum soon after the first printing. He moved to London, where he continued his detective fiction career. A Haycraft-Queen selection.
Eden Phillpotts. My Adventures in the Flying Scotsman. A Romance of London and North-Western Railway Shares. London: James Hogg and Sons, 1888.
This scarce and oddly titled first novel by the prolific and popular Eden Phillpotts maintains its fragile “rainbow stamping.” The detective is the narrator, “a meek little man.” Tipped into this copy is a postcard dated December, 1938, from Phillpotts to his bibliographer, Percival Hinton. This copy was once in the library and contains the bookplate of Eric Quayle, the English collector and writer, and author of The Collector’s Book of Detective Fiction (1972). Queen’s Quorum no. 13.
A[rthur] Conan Doyle. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. London: George Newnes, 1892.
In the first binding state, this is the first collection of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories and would be followed two years later by his The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. It is difficult to overstate how important the character of Sherlock Holmes is to the development of detective fiction. It is said that many people believe in the actual existence of two fictional characters: Robinson Crusoe and Sherlock Holmes. This volume contains some of the best-known Holmes stories, including “A Scandal in Bohemia,” “The Red-Headed League,” “The Blue Carbuncle,” and “The Copper Beeches.” Conan Doyle began the Golden Age of the Short Story, which ended with the outbreak of World War I. Queen’s Quorum no. 16 and a Haycraft-Queen selection.
[Arthur Conan Doyle]. A hand-written letter of appreciation by A. Conan Doyle on his South Norwood stationery.
“Sir Frederic” is possibly the famed war correspondent and artist Sir Frederic Villiers. The two men struck up an acquaintance during this time period. Doyle lived at Tennison Road from 1891 to 1894, meaning his stay there coincided with the composition and initial publication of most of the short stories that comprise The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.
“People have often asked me whether I knew the end of a Holmes story before I started it. Of course I do. One could not possibly steer a course if one did not know one’s destination.” - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
[Anonymous]. Book of Detective Stories, a Monthly Publication of “Multum in Parvo Library.” Boston: A. B. Courtney, 1894.
This small, sixteen-page, unprepossessing volume—Volume 1, No. 11, of the “Multum in Parvo Library”—precedes The Long Arm and Other Detective Tales (1895), which Ellery Queen called “an important book—the first legitimate detective story anthology ever published.” However, these stories are purported to come “from the diary of a New York detective,” so therefore from a single pen—making it no different than Doyle’s Adventures, which preceded it by two years. However, it is a very early collection of short stories in an unusual, and inexpensive, format.
I[srael] Zangwill. The Big Bow Mystery. New York: Rand, McNally & Co., 1895. With an early reprint by R. F. Fenno & Company (New York) in the scarce dust jacket.
The Rand, McNally imprint is the first American edition and the first edition in hard covers. The R.F. Fenno imprint is an early reprint edition in the rare dust jacket. This is one of Zangwill’s earliest books and generally considered the earliest “locked room” mystery. According to detective fiction historian Julian Symons, the novel “is also much more of a parody than has been acknowledged.” Spoiler alert: the murderer is the detective, the first person to enter the locked room. Zangwill is more of a sociologist than a mystery writer and popularized the metaphor of “the melting pot” to refer to immigrant absorption into the United States. He was known as the “Dickens of the Ghetto.” Queen’s Quorum no. 15 and a Haycraft-Queen selection.
Mark Twain [Samuel L. Clemens]. Tom Sawyer, Detective. As Told by Huck Finn and Other Tales. London: Chatto & Windus, 1897.
This is the first edition with this title. In this sequel to Tom Sawyer, Tom attempts to solve a mystery involving diamonds and murder, with Huck playing Watson to Tom’s Sherlock. Twain wrote this mild burlesque of the immensely popular detective novels of the time in three weeks, trying to alleviate some serious financial problems. The story was published in the US in the same year but with a different title. The advertisements in this edition are dated November, 1896.
Richard Harding Davis. In the Fog. New York: R. H. Russell, 1901.
Davis was a war correspondent, a friend of Teddy Roosevelt, and the man credited with popularizing the clean-shaven look at the turn of the former century. His novel is a set of loosely connected mystery stories set in a London’s men’s club. Based on the accompanying publisher’s flyer, there was an obvious attempt to cash in on the popularity of Sherlock Holmes. This copy is inscribed by the author to his doctor. Queen’s Quorum no. 29.
“The first essential value of the detective story lies in this, that it is the earliest and only form of popular literature in which is expressed some sense of the poetry of modern life.” - G. K. Chesterton
Barry Pain. The Memoirs of Constantine Dix. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1905.
Pain’s Constantine Dix was a gentleman burglar in the manner of E. W. Hornung’s Raffles, but with more of a moral center. Dix assists those in need and provides spiritual counsel, from which he gains information that helps him in his career as a burglar. Accompanied by a signed note from Pain declining a dinner invitation.
Paul Leicester Ford. The Great K & A Train Robbery. New York: Dodd Mead and Company, 1897. (Two copies.)
The detective and narrator of the story is Dick Gordon, superintendent of the Kansas and Arizona Railroad. Paul Ford was a prolific writer on many subjects but not detective fiction. What is most interesting about Ford, a sufferer of kyphosis, is that he was also a victim of murder, specifically fratricide. In 1902, his disinherited brother, a one-time Olympic athlete, shot and killed Ford in his own study in a money dispute and then killed himself. The more worn copy of the book on display is from the library of collector and writer Eric Quayle, author of The Collector’s Book of Detective Fiction.
Mark Twain [Samuel L. Clemens]. A Double Barreled Detective Story. New York and London: Harper & Brothers, 1902.
Twain’s final excursion into detective fiction, A Double Barreled Detective Story, is another slap at the omniscience of Sherlock Holmes. The cover displays the immortal line, “We ought never to do wrong when people are looking.”
G[ilbert] K[eith] Chesterton. The Innocence of Father Brown. London and New York: Cassell and Company, Ltd., 1911.
K. Chesterton was one of the first men of letters to champion detective fiction, in his 1901 essay, “Defense of the Detective Story.” Father Brown, Chesterton’s protagonist, was “a little Roman Catholic priest, inconspicuous, mild, dull and vacuous,” and was more interested in having the criminal confess than in punishment or even arrest. Queen’s Quorum no. 47 and a Haycraft-Queen selection.
Guy [Newell] Boothby. Doctor Nikola. London: Ward, Lock & Co., Limited, 1896.
This is the second printing of the second in Guy Boothby’s Dr. Nikola series. Pictured on the cover by artist Stanley L. Wood with his ever-present cat Apollyon (named after a dark angel), Dr. Nikola was an anti-hero whose goal was ever-lasting life. Boothby was from a prominent Australian family and wrote over fifty novels, even though he died of influenza at the young age of thirty-eight in 1905.
Robert Barr. The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1906.
This is the first American edition. Eugene Valmont is a “natty little French-man with sublime self-assurance, a quick, Gallic wit, and a poor opinion of the English police.” Besides being the first French detective to appear in English detective fiction, Valmont also is an influence on all those to come, including Agatha Christie’s famous Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot. Queen’s Quorum no. 35 and a Haycraft-Queen selection.
The Thinking Machine
Jacques Futrelle. The Chase of the Golden Plate. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1906.
Jacques Futrelle. The Thinking Machine. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1907.
“The Thinking Machine,” Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, PH.D., LL.D., F.R.S., M.D., etc., first appeared on page 142 of Futrelle’s The Chase of the Golden Plate and was the sole focus, in a series of “case reports,” in the second novel. Julian Symons, a detective fiction historian, states that “the whiff of absurdity is strong but the . . . stories are almost all ingenious.” A descendant of French Huguenots, Futrelle hailed from the state of Georgia. He tragically died in the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. The Thinking Machine is Queen’s Quorum no. 38 and a Haycraft-Queen selection.
Gaston Leroux. The Mystery of the Yellow Room. New York: Brentano’s, 1908.
This is the first novel by the French journalist Gaston Leroux, best known for his novel The Phantom of the Opera. Displayed is the first English translation of his acclaimed “locked room” mystery, heavily influenced by Zangwill’s The Big Bow Mystery. A Haycraft-Queen selection.
A[rthur] Conan Doyle. The Hound of the Baskervilles. London: George Newnes, 1902.
This is the first edition in book form after the serial publication. The Hound of the Baskervilles, besides being an exceptionally striking book with its cover design by Alfred Garth Jones, is widely viewed as Conan Doyle’s best and most popular Sherlock Holmes novel. Written eight years after Conan Doyle let Holmes die at the Reichenbach Falls, the book takes the form of a reminiscence of Watson set in the past. The plot revolves around a “gigantic hound” that is said to haunt the Baskerville family in the Devon moors. Of course, Holmes proves that the mystery has a perfectly rational explanation. A Haycraft-Queen selection.
Baroness Orczy [Emmuska Orczy]. The Old Man in the Corner. London: Greening & Co., Ltd., 1909.
Best known for the creation of “The Scarlet Pimpernel,” Baroness Orczy was a Hungarian of noble birth who moved to England to study art. The Old Man in the Corner is one of the earliest examples of the “armchair sleuth,” who stays in the same place and has the clues come to him. John Carter described it as “an early and persuasive example of the intuitive school of detectives.” In the last story in the book, the “old man” himself may be the murderer. The “old man” first appeared in Orczy’s 1905 novel The Case of Miss Elliot. The Old Man in the Corner is Queen’s Quorum no. 41 and a Haycraft-Queen selection.
The Beginning of the Modern Detective Novel
E[dmund] C[lerihew] Bentley. The Woman in Black. New York: The Century Co., 1913.
C. Bentley. Trent’s Last Case. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1913.
Bentley’s ground-breaking detective novel was a reaction to the perfection of Sherlock Holmes: “Bentley disliked both the egotism and the seriousness of Holmes.” First published in the US, the novel restored its original, more memorable title when published in the UK. Often referred to as the first modern detective novel, it features a detective hero who falls in love with a suspect and initially bungles the case. Bentley noted that it was “not so much a detective story as an exposure of detective stories.” John Carter stated that Trent’s Last Case brought the Sherlock Holmes period to an end. A Haycraft-Queen selection.
A[rthur] Conan Doyle. Valley of Fear. New York: George H. Doran Company, 1914.
The first American edition of the final Holmes novel, preceding the British edition by several weeks. Illustrated by Arthur I. Keller. A Haycraft-Queen selection.
Ellis Parker Butler. Philo Gubb, Correspondence School Detective. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1918.
Another Sherlock Holmes spoof, down to the pipe and soft cap illustrated on the cover. Philo Gubb references him directly in the text: “We can make you the equal of Sherlock Holmes in twelve lessons.” Queen’s Quorum no. 61.