R. AUSTIN FREEMAN FIRST EDITIONS AT
ASH RARE BOOKS
43 HURON ROAD
LONDON SW17 8RE
UNITED KINGDOM

London : Chatto & Windus, 1909. First edition. Dr Thorndyke, first of the modern forensic detectives, here appearing in eight stories, including “The Anthropologist at Large” and “The Blue Sequin”. Introduced in Freeman’s preface as “a somewhat new departure in this class of literature” – as indeed it was, with illustrations to back up the forensics. A Haycraft-Queen “cornerstone” of detective fiction.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (xii),288pp + 32pp inserted catalogue dated September 1908. Ten plates – six atmospheric studies by Henry Matthew Brock (1875-1960) and four “micro-photographs” of the evidentiary specimens. Plan. Facsimiles. Original pictorial cloth; a few faint marks; some very mild rubbing and wear; endpapers lightly tanned, but a very good copy of a major contribution to the field.

£400

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London : Hodder & Stoughton, [1929]. First edition of this thousand-page-plus omnibus collection of all bar three of the Thorndyke short stories which had appeared in the five collections published between 1909 and 1927. The stories are here grouped into six “inverted” and thirty-one “direct” examples, with an absorbing new preface by the author on the nature and methodology of the detective story. “Mr Freeman’s super-detective, Dr Thorndyke, needs no introduction ... each case has some new ingenuity to commend it” (The Scotsman, 14th October 1929).
Crown 8vo (182 x 116mm). viii,1080pp. Diagrams and a plan. Bound in a handsome later half crimson crushed morocco by Bayntun-Riviere, banded and gilt; top edge gilt; faint mark to back cover; some light spotting of edges; a few tiny internal marks; one leaf with a repaired tear, a handful of others lightly creased, but still a handsome copy.

£400

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London : Hodder & Stoughton, (1936). First edition : the first issue, with the top edge stained blue. Wealthy collector of antiquities disappears after a hit-and-run – Thorndyke investigates.
Crown 8vo (20cm). 317,[iii]pp. Original pale blue cloth, lettered in black; just a hint of rubbing and sunning, but a very good, bright, clean and sound copy in the original dust-jacket – a typographic design in green and cerise on white – also just faintly rubbed and very lightly sunned, but an excellent copy – the highly fugitive colours of the jacket surviving remarkably well.

£500

Currently on display at Bryars & Bryars in central London, please enquire about availability – books@ashrare.com