L. W. Currey, Inc.

Muddock, James Edward Preston, writing as "Dick Donovan.". THE CHRONICLES OF MICHAEL DANEVITCH OF THE RUSSIAN SECRET SERVICE ... By Dick Donovan [pseudonym] ... A New Edition. London: Chatto & Windus, 1898. Small octavo, pp. [1-8] 1-304 + [1-2: chromolithograph/ad leaf] and 32-page publisher's catalogue dated "Jan. 1898" inserted at rear, publisher's pictorial white boards printed in tan and black, ads on endpapers. Later edition. Most of the stories are cases of the celebrated Russian detective related to fellow detective Dick Donovan. The last story, "The Clue of the Dead Hand," features detective Peter Brodie who investigates a murder and a simultaneous mysterious disappearance in Scotland at Corbie Hall, "a strange, weird sort of place ... [with] an eeriness about it that was calculated to make one shudder." This story belongs as much in the (rationalized) ghost story genre as the detective story. It also involves a case of male impersonation. Glover and Greene, Victorian Detective Fiction 111. Queen, The Detective Short Story, p. 34. Hubin (1994), p. 240. Topp, Victorian Yellowbacks & Paperbacks, 1849-1905 III, p. 253. Boards worn at edges, a very good copy. An uncommon yellowback. (#171208).

Price: $150.00