JOHN THORNDYKE'S CASES. London: Chatto & Windus, 1909. Octavo, pp. [i-iv] v [vi] vii-ix [x] xi [xii] 1-288 + 32-page publisher's catalogue dated "908" inserted at rear, ten inserted plates, six with illustrations by H. M. Brock, four with illustrations from photographs, plus five sketches in the text, publisher's pictorial brown cloth, front panel stamped in pinkish light brown and black, spine panel stamped in gold. First edition, first printing. This copy has the inserted publisher's catalogue dated "908," the earliest known, but the book wasn't published until late 1909, so catalogues dated "908" or "609" predate publication by several months to a year -- and both, as inserts, are of no significance in establishing the priority of issue -- if any -- of first printing copies. The first collection of short stories featuring Dr. Thorndyke, a forensic scientist and lawyer, the greatest scientific detective in fiction, who first appeared in Freeman's THE RED THUMB MARK, a novel published in 1907. "As a craftsman in the more literary sense, Dr. Freeman presents an interesting anomaly. His narrative style is so often that of late-Victorian romanticism that it is not unusual to find him unconsciously classified in the Doyle period. Indeed, the domestic trappings of a typical Freeman tale bring to the fire-lit chambers in King's Bench Walk much the same mood of snugness and nostalgic bachelor bonhomie which is destined to bespeak Baker Street to the end of time. But in his pioneer insistence on the fair-play method, the creator of John Thorndyke, M.D., was a Modern before the Moderns. He was the true and undoubted 'parent' of the scientific detective story in the highest meaning of the phrase, and remains today the living dean of that form -- if not, indeed, of all detective story writers of whatever style or persuasion." - Haycraft, Murder for Pleasure (1951), p. 70. A Haycraft-Queen "cornerstone." Queen, The Detective Short Story, p. 43. Queen's Quorum 42. Hubin (1994), p. 306. Hubin (1994), p. 306. Donaldson 5a. Small leather bookplate of John Talbot Gernon affixed to the front paste-down. Mild spine lean, free endpapers tanned, a clean, tight, very good copy. A lovely copy. (#177746).
Price: $850.00
No statement of printing.