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THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE SEVEN KINGS ...
London, New York and Melbourne, Ward, Lock & Co., Limited, 1903. Octavo, pp. [i-vi] 7-128, 2 inserted plates with illustrations by Sidney Paget, pictorial wrappers. This publication omits one of the ten stories from the hardcover edition. Series of linked sensational crime stories first published in THE STRAND MAGAZINE, January-October 1898 featuring Madame Koluchy, a Moriarty-like master criminal who is incredibly beautiful, intelligent and charming, and who commits extortion, blackmail and murder employing "an arsenal of scientific techniques and devices that are occasionally over the border into science-fiction." - Bleiler, Science-Fiction: The Early Years 1469. A "historic volume [which] contains the first series of stories about a female criminal." - Steinbrunner and Penzler (eds), Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection, p. 284. "On the very heels of Raffles, the gentleman crook, came Madame Koluchy, the lady crook. Her grand entrance in THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE SEVEN KINGS (1899) marks the earliest appearance of a female felon in a series of short stories. In ten connected tales Madame Koluchy, as the guiding genius of a sinister secret society, as 'the brain that had conceived and the body that had executed some of the most malignant designs against mankind that the history of the world has ever known,' proves herself 'the compleat criminal': kidnapper, blackmailer, bank robber, and murderer -- although it should be noted that Madame Koluchy's attempts at murder were consistently foiled by a young scientist-detective named Norman Head." - QQ 27. Suvin, Victorian Science Fiction in the UK, p. 114. Bleiler (1978), p. 137. Glover and Greene, Victorian Detective Fiction, p. 88. Queen, The Detective Short Story, p. 74. Hubin (1994), p. 566. Not in Reginald (1979; 1992).
A MASTER OF MYSTERIES ...
London, New York and Melbourne: Ward, Lock & Co Limited, n.d., [1898]. Octavo, pp. [1-6] 7-279 [280: blank] + 8-page undated publisher's catalogue inserted at rear, six inserted plates with illustrations by J. Ambrose Walton, original pictorial bevel-edged blue cloth, front and spine panels stamped in gold, top edge untrimmed, other edges rough trimmed. First edition. Six cases of John Bell, a private investigator of unusual and strange mysteries "now well known to all my friends as a professional exposer of ghosts, and one who can clear away the mysteries of most haunted houses." Queen, The Detective Short Story, p. 74. Hubin (1994), p. 566.
THE HOME OF SILENCE.
London: Sisley's Ltd., n.d., [1907]. Octavo, pp. [1-4] 5-278 [279] [280: blank], original pictorial brown cloth, front panel stamped in orange and black, spine panel stamped in black, bottom edge untrimmed. First edition. A sensational romance novel set largely in Ireland concerning a hushed up family secret (an Irish ne'er-do-well murders a servant girl) that causes more tragedy (the murdered girl's brother, bent on taking revenge on the family's heir, drowns in a bog). Hubin (1994), p. 566.