Great Stories of Crime & Detection

This anthology collects short crime and detection fiction from the mid-nineteenth century to the late twentieth, arranged by period rather than by a single detective. Early pieces introduce ratiocination, sensation, and the professional investigator; later groups cover the interwar puzzle, mid-century noir and suspense, and postwar police and psychological crime. Typical subjects are murder, theft, disguise, and the gap between appearance and evidence, in settings from London and Paris to American cities. The contributors range from Poe, Collins, and Conan Doyle through Chesterton and the Golden Age to later writers of hardboiled and procedural stories. It is a historical survey in short form, not one continuous case.

11 in each volume. Authors included: Poe, Dickens, Le Fanu, Wilkie Collins, L T Meade, Arthur Conan Doyle, R Austin Freeman, Arthur Morrison, Maurice Leblanc, Baroness Orczy, E W Hornung, Ernest Bramah, G K Chesterton et. Al. Dark blue four-volume cloth covered slipcase gilt printed with text.