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A brand new anthology of previously unpublished and uncollected
supernatural mysteries by some of the masters of the Golden Age –
thrills, spills and chills perfect for Halloween. It is said that
books are written to bring sunshine into our dull, grey lives –
to show us places we want to escape to, lives we want to live,
people we want to love. But there are also stories that can only be
found in the deepest, darkest corners of the library. Stories about
the unexplained, of lost souls, of things that go bump before the
silence. Before the screaming. And some stories just disappear.
Stories printed in old newspapers, broadcast live on the wireless,
sometimes not even published at all – these are the stories you
cannot find on even the dustiest of library shelves. Ghosts from
the Library resurrects forgotten tales of the supernatural by some
of the most acclaimed mystery authors of all time. From Arthur
Conan Doyle and John Dickson Carr to Agatha Christie and Daphne du
Maurier, this spine-chilling anthology brings together thirteen
uncollected tales of terror, plus some additional surprises. Close
the windows. Draw the curtains. Just don’t let the lights go
out…
Twenty classic authors from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction are
brought together in the latest “Bodies from the Library”
anthology series of previously unpublished and uncollected stories
of crime and suspense. The end of the First World War saw the rise
of an insatiable public appetite for clever and thrilling mystery
fiction and a new kind of hero – the modern crime writer. As the
genre soared in popularity, so did the inventiveness of its best
authors, ushering in a “Golden Age” of detective fiction –
two decades of exemplary mystery writing: the era of the whodunit,
the impossible crime and the locked-room mystery, with stories that
have thrilled and baffled generations of readers. The Golden Age
still casts a long shadow, with many of the authors who were
published at that time still hugely popular today. Aside from
novels, they all wrote short fiction – stories, serials and plays
– and although many have been republished in books over the last
100 years, Bodies from the Library collects the ones that are
impossible to find: stories that appeared in a newspaper, magazine
or an anthology that has long been out of print; ephemeral works
such as plays not aired, staged or screened for decades; and
unpublished stories that were absorbed into an author’s archive
when they died . . . Complete with fascinating biographies by Tony
Medawar of all the featured authors, this latest volume in the
annual Bodies from the Library series once again brings into the
daylight the forgotten, the lost and the unknown, and is an
indispensable collection for any bookshelf.
Did you know that one of the world's sharpest and most forensic
minds inhabited the persona of an attractive old lady, with pink
cheeks and blue eyes, and a gentle, rather fussy manner? Discover
the secrets of Miss Marple in this gorgeous book of her quotes and
sayings, and an essay by Agatha Christie appearing for the first
time in any book! 'Really, I have no gifts - except perhaps a
certain knowledge of human nature.' Everyone in St Mary Mead knew
Miss Marple: fluffy and dithery in appearance, but inwardly as
sharp and as shrewd as they make them. 'This is a wicked murderer,
Inspector - and the wicked should not go unpunished.' Now, in her
own words, discover the razor-sharp mind of the world's favourite
armchair sleuth, and the wit and wisdom of the Queen of Crime who
created her. Includes an exclusive essay by Agatha Christie written
to promote the Miss Marple stories: Does a Woman's Instinct Make
Her a Good Detective?
Republished for the first time in nearly 95 years, a classic winter
country house mystery by the founder of the Detection Club, with a
twist that even Agatha Christie couldn't solve! Stephen Munro, a
demobbed army officer, reconciles himself to taking a job as a
footman to make ends meet. Employed at Wintringham Hall, the
delightful but decaying Sussex country residence of the elderly
Lady Susan Carey, his first task entails welcoming her eccentric
guests to a weekend house-party, at which her bombastic nephew -
who recognises Stephen from his former life - decides that an
after-dinner seance would be more entertaining than bridge. Then
Cicely disappears! With Lady Susan reluctant to call the police
about what is presumably a childish prank, Stephen and the plucky
Pauline Mainwaring take it upon themselves to investigate. But then
a suspicious death turns the game into an altogether more serious
affair... This classic winter mystery incorporates all the
trappings of the Golden Age - a rambling country house, a seance, a
murder, a room locked on the inside, with servants, suspects and
alibis, a romance - and an ingenious puzzle. First published as a
30-part newspaper serial in 1926 - the year The Murder of Roger
Ackroyd was published, The Wintringham Mystery was written by
Anthony Berkeley, founder of the famous Detection Club. Also known
as Cicely Disappears, the Daily Mirror ran the story as a
competition with a prize of GBP500 (equivalent to GBP30,000 today)
for anyone who guessed the solution correctly. Nobody did - even
Agatha Christie entered and couldn't solve it. Can you?
This annual anthology of rare stories of crime and suspense brings
together tales from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction for the
first time in book form, including a short novel by Christianna
Brand. Mystery stories have been around for centuries-there are
whodunits, whydunits and howdunits, including locked-room puzzles,
detective stories without detectives, and crimes with a limited
choice of suspects. Countless volumes of such stories have been
published, but some are still impossible to find: stories that
appeared in a newspaper, magazine or an anthology that has long
been out of print; ephemeral works such as plays not aired, staged
or screened for decades; and unpublished stories that were absorbed
into an author's archive when they died . . . Here for the first
time are three never-before-published mysteries by Edmund Crispin,
Ngaio Marsh and Leo Bruce, and two pieces written for radio by
Gladys Mitchell and H. C. Bailey-the latter featuring Reggie
Fortune. Together with a newly unearthed short story by Ethel Lina
White that inspired Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes, and a complete
short novel by Christianna Brand, this diverse mix of tales by some
of the world's most popular classic crime writers contains
something for everyone. Complete with indispensable biographies by
Tony Medawar of all the featured authors, the fourth volume in the
series Bodies from the Library once again brings into the daylight
the forgotten, the lost and the unknown.
Classic crime fiction's 'Indiana Jones' Tony Medawar unearths more
unpublished and uncollected stories from the Golden Age of
suspense, including John Bude, John Dickson Carr, Dorothy L. Sayers
and Julian Symons. 'Five books in, and the selection here might
well be the strongest yet. This series continues to delight with
the high standard of forgotten gems that Medawar uncovers, and
there's sufficient range to ensure that all fans of the genre will
find something to enjoy. Book 6 can't come soon enough.' Jim Noy,
author of The Red Death Murders The end of the First World War saw
the rise of an insatiable public appetite for clever and thrilling
mystery fiction and a new kind of hero - the modern crime writer.
As the genre soared in popularity, so did the inventiveness of its
best authors, ushering in a "Golden Age" of detective fiction - two
decades of exemplary mystery writing: the era of the whodunit, the
impossible crime and the locked-room mystery, with stories that
have thrilled and baffled generations of readers. The Golden Age
still casts a long shadow, with many of the authors who were
published at that time still hugely popular today. Aside from
novels, they all wrote short fiction - stories, serials and plays -
and although many have been republished in books over the last 100
years, Bodies from the Library collects the ones that are
impossible to find: stories that appeared in a newspaper, magazine
or an anthology that has long been out of print; ephemeral works
such as plays not aired, staged or screened for decades; and
unpublished stories that were absorbed into an author's archive
when they died . . . Complete with fascinating biographies by Tony
Medawar of all the featured authors, this latest volume in the
annual Bodies from the Library series once again brings into the
daylight the forgotten, the lost and the unknown, and is an
indispensable collection for any bookshelf.
A classic British crime novel from the Golden Age – perhaps the
first ever psychological crime novel – by the founder of the
Detection Club, marking 50 years since the death of the author. Mrs
Bentley has been arrested for murder. The evidence is overwhelming:
arsenic she extracted from fly papers was in her husband’s
medicine, his food and his lemonade, and her crimes are being
plastered across the newspapers. Even her lawyers believe she is
guilty. But Roger Sheringham, the brilliant but outspoken young
novelist, is convinced that there is ‘too much evidence’
against Mrs Bentley and sets out to prove her innocence. Credited
as the book that first introduced psychology to the detective
novel, The Wychford Poisoning Case was based on a notorious
real-life murder inquiry. Written by Anthony Berkeley, a founder of
the celebrated Detection Club who also found fame under the
pen-name ‘Francis Iles’, the story saw the return of Roger
Sheringham, the Golden Age’s breeziest – and booziest –
detective.
A classic British crime novel from the Golden Age – one of the
first to feature a serial killer – by the founder of the
Detection Club, marking 50 years since the death of the author.
Investigating the disappearance of a vicar’s daughter in London,
the popular novelist and amateur detective Roger Sheringham is
shocked to discover that the girl is already dead, found hanging
from a screw by her own silk stocking. Reports of similar deaths
across the capital strengthen his conviction that this is no
suicide cult but the work of a homicidal maniac out for vengeance
– a desperate situation requiring desperate measures. Having
established Roger Sheringham as a brilliant but headstrong young
sleuth who frequently made mistakes, trusted the wrong people and
imbibed considerable liquid refreshment, Anthony Berkeley took his
controversial character into much darker territory with The Silk
Stocking Murders, a sensational novel about gruesome serial
killings by an apparent psychopath bent on targeting vulnerable
young women.
This anthology of rare stories of crime and suspense brings
together 18 tales from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction for the
first time in book form, including uncollected stories by Ngaio
Marsh and John Dickson Carr. The Golden Age of detective fiction
had begun inauspiciously with the publication of E.C. Bentley's
schismatic Trent's Last Case in 1913, but it hit its stride in 1920
when both Agatha Christie and Freeman Wills Crofts - latterly
crowned queen and king of the genre - had crime novels published
for the first time. They ushered in two decades of exemplary
mystery writing, the era of the whodunit, the impossible crime and
the locked-room mystery, with stories that have thrilled and
baffled generations of readers. This new volume in the Bodies from
the Library series features the work of 18 prolific authors who,
like Christie and Crofts, saw their popularity soar during the
Golden Age. Aside from novels, they all wrote short fiction -
stories, serials and plays - and although most of them have been
collected in books over the last 100 years, here are the ones that
got away... In this book you will encounter classic series
detectives including Colonel Gore, Roger Sheringham, Hildegarde
Withers and Henri Bencolin; Hercule Poirot solves 'The Incident of
the Dog's Ball'; Roderick Alleyn returns to New Zealand in a
recently discovered television drama by Ngaio Marsh; and Dorothy L.
Sayers' chilling 'The House of the Poplars' is published for the
first time. With a full-length novella by John Dickson Carr and an
unpublished radio script by Cyril Hare, this diverse collection
concludes with some early 'flash fiction' commissioned by Collins'
Crime Club in 1938. Each mini story had to feature an orange,
resulting in six very different tales from Peter Cheyney, Ethel
Lina White, David Hume, Nicholas Blake, John Rhode and - in his
only foray into writing detective fiction - the publisher himself,
William Collins.
This annual anthology of rare stories of crime and suspense brings
together tales from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction for the
first time in book form, including a short novel by Christianna
Brand. Mystery stories have been around for centuries-there are
whodunits, whydunits and howdunits, including locked-room puzzles,
detective stories without detectives, and crimes with a limited
choice of suspects. Countless volumes of such stories have been
published, but some are still impossible to find: stories that
appeared in a newspaper, magazine or an anthology that has long
been out of print; ephemeral works such as plays not aired, staged
or screened for decades; and unpublished stories that were absorbed
into an author's archive when they died . . . Here for the first
time are three never-before-published mysteries by Edmund Crispin,
Ngaio Marsh and Leo Bruce, and two pieces written for radio by
Gladys Mitchell and H. C. Bailey-the latter featuring Reggie
Fortune. Together with a newly unearthed short story by Ethel Lina
White that inspired Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes, and a complete
short novel by Christianna Brand, this diverse mix of tales by some
of the world's most popular classic crime writers contains
something for everyone. Complete with indispensable biographies by
Tony Medawar of all the featured authors, the fourth volume in the
series Bodies from the Library once again brings into the daylight
the forgotten, the lost and the unknown.
This anthology of rare stories of crime and suspense brings
together 16 tales by masters of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction
for the first time in book form, including a newly discovered
Agatha Christie crime story that has not been seen since 1922. At a
time when crime and thriller writing has once again overtaken the
sales of general and literary fiction, Bodies from the Library
unearths lost stories from the Golden Age, that period between the
World Wars when detective fiction captured the public's imagination
and saw the emergence of some of the world's cleverest and most
popular storytellers. This anthology brings together 16 forgotten
tales that have either been published only once before - perhaps in
a newspaper or rare magazine - or have never before appeared in
print. From a previously unpublished 1917 script featuring Ernest
Bramah's blind detective Max Carrados, to early 1950s crime stories
written for London's Evening Standard by Cyril Hare, Freeman Wills
Crofts and A.A. Milne, it spans five decades of writing by masters
of the Golden Age. Most anticipated of all are the contributions by
women writers: the first detective story by Georgette Heyer, unseen
since 1923; an unpublished story by Christianna Brand, creator of
Nanny McPhee; and a dark tale by Agatha Christie published only in
an Australian journal in 1922 during her 'Grand Tour' of the
British Empire. With other stories by Detection Club stalwarts
Anthony Berkeley, H.C. Bailey, J.J. Connington, John Rhode and
Nicholas Blake, plus Vincent Cornier, Leo Bruce, Roy Vickers and
Arthur Upfield, this essential collection harks back to a time
before forensic science - when murder was a complex business.
A special release of the very first crime novel by John Rhode,
introducing Dr Priestley, the genius detective who would go on to
appear in more than 70 bestselling crime novels during the Golden
Age. When Harold Merefield returned home in the early hours of a
winter morning from a festive little party at that popular
nightclub, the 'Naxos', he was startled by a gruesome discovery. On
his bed was a corpse. There was nothing to show the identity of the
dead man or the cause of his death. At the inquest, the jury found
a verdict of 'Death from Natural Causes' - perhaps they were right,
but yet . . . ? Harold determined to investigate the matter for
himself and sought the help of Professor Priestley, who, by the
simple but unusual method of logical reasoning, succeeded in
throwing light upon what proved to be a very curious affair indeed.
This Detective Club classic is introduced by crime writing
historian and expert Tony Medawar, who looks at how John Rhode, who
also wrote as Miles Burton and as Cecil Waye, became one of the
best-selling and most popular British authors of the Golden Age.
Classic crime fiction's 'Indiana Jones' Tony Medawar unearths more
unpublished and uncollected stories from the Golden Age of
suspense, including John Bude, John Dickson Carr, Dorothy L. Sayers
and Julian Symons. ‘Five books in, and the selection here might
well be the strongest yet. This series continues to delight with
the high standard of forgotten gems that Medawar uncovers, and
there’s sufficient range to ensure that all fans of the genre
will find something to enjoy. Book 6 can’t come soon enough.’
Jim Noy, author of The Red Death Murders The end of the First World
War saw the rise of an insatiable public appetite for clever and
thrilling mystery fiction and a new kind of hero – the modern
crime writer. As the genre soared in popularity, so did the
inventiveness of its best authors, ushering in a “Golden Age”
of detective fiction – two decades of exemplary mystery writing:
the era of the whodunit, the impossible crime and the locked-room
mystery, with stories that have thrilled and baffled generations of
readers. The Golden Age still casts a long shadow, with many of the
authors who were published at that time still hugely popular today.
Aside from novels, they all wrote short fiction – stories,
serials and plays – and although many have been republished in
books over the last 100 years, Bodies from the Library collects the
ones that are impossible to find: stories that appeared in a
newspaper, magazine or an anthology that has long been out of
print; ephemeral works such as plays not aired, staged or screened
for decades; and unpublished stories that were absorbed into an
author’s archive when they died . . . Complete with fascinating
biographies by Tony Medawar of all the featured authors, this
latest volume in the annual Bodies from the Library series once
again brings into the daylight the forgotten, the lost and the
unknown, and is an indispensable collection for any bookshelf.
This anthology of rare stories of crime and suspense brings
together 15 tales from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction for the
first time in book form, including newly discovered stories by
Dorothy L. Sayers and Edmund Crispin that have never previously
been published. With the Golden Age of detective fiction shining
ever more brightly thanks to the recent reappearance of many
forgotten crime novels, Bodies from the Library offers a rare
opportunity to read lost stories from the first half of the
twentieth century by some of the genre's most accomplished writers.
This second volume is a showcase for popular figures of the Golden
Age, in stories that even their most ardent fans will not be aware
of. It includes uncollected and unpublished stories by acclaimed
queens and kings of crime fiction, from Helen Simpson, Ethel Lina
White, E.C.R. Lorac, Christianna Brand, Agatha Christie and Dorothy
L. Sayers, to S.S. Van Dine, Jonathan Latimer, Clayton Rawson,
Cyril Alington and Antony and Peter Shaffer (writing as Peter
Antony). This book also features two highly readable radio scripts
by Margery Allingham (involving Jack the Ripper) and John Rhode,
plus two full-length novellas - one from a rare magazine by Q
Patrick, the other an unpublished Gervase Fen mystery by Edmund
Crispin, written at the height of his career. It concludes with
another remarkable discovery: 'The Locked Room' by Dorothy L.
Sayers, a never-before-published case for Lord Peter Wimsey!
Selected and introduced by Tony Medawar, who also provides
fascinating pen portraits of each author, Bodies from the Library 2
is an indispensable collection for any bookshelf.
The classic crime novel featuring blind detective Max Carrados,
whose popularity rivalled that of Sherlock Holmes, complete with a
new introduction and an extra short story. In his dark little curio
shop Julian Joolby is weaving an extravagant scheme to smash the
financial machinery of the world by flooding the Oriental market
with forged banknotes. But this monster of wickedness has not
reckoned on Max Carrados, the suave and resourceful investigator
whose visual impairment gives him heightened powers of perception
that ordinary detectives overlook. Max Carrados was a blind
detective whose stories by Ernest Bramah appeared from 1914
alongside Sherlock Holmes in the Strand Magazine, in which they
often had top billing. Described by George Orwell as among 'the
only detective stories since Poe that are worth re-reading', the 25
stories were collected in three hugely popular volumes, culminating
in a full-length novel, The Bravo of London (1934), in which
Carrados engages in a battle of wits against a fiendish plot that
threatens to overthrow civilisation itself. This Detective Club
classic is introduced by Tony Medawar, who investigates the impact
on the genre of Bramah's blind detective and the relative obscurity
of this, the only Max Carrados novel. This edition also includes
the sole uncollected short story 'The Bunch of Violets'. As well as
on the page, the Max Carrados stories have been a firm favourite on
television and film, played over the years by (among others) Robert
Stephens, Simon Callow and Pip Torrens, and read on audio by Arthur
Darvill and Stephen Fry.
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