The Father Brown Stories

This collection gathers the short detective stories in which Father Brown, a short Roman Catholic priest with a blunt umbrella, solves crimes that baffle more official minds. The cases, beginning in 1911 with The Innocence of Father Brown, run through thefts, murders, and apparent miracles in English country houses, London, and abroad. Brown's method is imaginative sympathy: he explains how a sinner thinks, then shows the mundane trick behind the sensation. Recurring figures include the reformed thief Flambeau. The book is a series of independent puzzles, each a moral comedy about pride, disguise, and the difference between seeming and guilt.

12 leaves of full-page scraperboard illustrations in each volume. Full purple cloth with a warp-around design in black by Biro. Pale grey endleaves. Dark purple two-volume slipcase with gilt front title (part of the impression was issued as two separately dark purple slipcased volumes).