Classic American Crime Fiction of the 1920s

by Leslie S Klinger, Otto Penzler (Introduction)

Overview

A riveting collection of five of the most famous crime novels of the 1920s, presenting anew some of the most admired authors of the era—with insightful annotations by the Edgar-winning anthologist Leslie S. Klinger.

American crime writing was reborn in the 1920s. After years of dominance by British authors, new American writers—with fresh ideas about the detective and the mystery—appeared on the scene and rose to heights of popularity not witnessed since the success of the Sherlock Holmes tales in America.

Classic American Crime Writing of the 1920s—including House Without a Key, The Benson Murder Case, The Roman Hat Mystery, Red Harvest, and Little Caesar—offers some of the very best of that decade’s writing. Earl Derr Biggers wrote about Charlie Chan, a Chinese-American detective, at a time when racism was rampant. S. S. Van Dine invented Philo Vance, an effete, rich amateur psychologist who flourished while America danced and the stock market rose. The quintessential American detective Ellery Queen leapt onto the stage, to remain popular for fifty years. Dashiell Hammett brings readers another mystery narrated by the Continental Op. W. R. Burnett, created the indelible character of Rico, the first gangster antihero.

Each of the five novels included is presented in its original published form, with extensive historical and cultural annotations and illustrations added by Edgar-winning editor Leslie S. Klinger, allowing the reader to experience the story to its fullest. Klinger's detailed foreword gives an overview of the history of American crime writing from its beginnings in the early years of America to the twentieth century. This gorgeously illustrated volume includes over 100 color and black and white images as well as an introduction by the eminent mystery publisher Otto Penzler.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781681778617
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	10/02/2018
Pages:	1152
Sales rank:	921,786
Product dimensions:	8.60(w) x 10.30(h) x 2.50(d)

About the Author

Leslie S. Klinger is one of the world's foremost authorities on Sherlock Holmes. He is the editor of the three-volume set The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes. The first two volumes, The Complete Short Stories, won the Edgar for "Best Critical/Biographical" work. He has just completed The New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft. Klinger is a member of the Baker Street Irregulars and lives in Malibu.

Otto Penzler is the proprietor of the Mysterious Bookshop in New York City. He is the founder of the Mysterious Press and Otto Penzler Books and has received an Edgar Award, an Ellery Queen Award, and a Raven Award for his contribution to the mystery field. His anthology The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps was a New York Times Bestseller.

Editorial Reviews

08/13/2018
These five novels, all wildly popular when first published, offer a window on the world of manners and attitudes in America in the 1920s. They can still be enjoyed as mysteries, or they can be read as historic documents, enriched by Klinger’s copious annotations that help fix each in its time and place. These notes help the reader understand just how groundbreaking it was for Earl Derr Biggers to create Charlie Chan of the Honolulu Police, one of crime fiction’s first positive Asian characters, who makes his debut in The House Without a Key. The next two books, set among the monied classes of New York, introduce amateur sleuth Ellery Queen in Ellery Queen’s The Roman Hat Mystery and erudite know-it-all Philo Vance in S.S. Van Dine’s The Benson Murder Case. Toffs are followed by tough guys, and the tone gets darker in Dashiell Hammett’s first Continental Op novel, Red Harvest, and W.R. Burnett’s Little Caesar, which describes the rise and fall of Chicago gangster Rico Bandello. Klinger (The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes) offers a veritable buffet of food for thought for crime fiction fans. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"Klinger's skill as an editor of anthologies needs no introduction. Classic American Crime Fiction of the 1920s surpasses Klinger’s outstanding prior works. The complex history of early American mystery fiction is expertly defined and detailed. The text of the original manuscripts blossom with notes of context and understanding. A landmark review of classic works in terms all readers will enjoy!"

Charles Todd

"It’s like a break-neck, thrill-ride, pell-mell passage to another mad era. A seatbelt for your armchair is suggested. I am quite sure there will be no dozing off."

The Virginian-Pilot

"A handsome, hefty volume, filled out by period illustrations (in both color and black-and-white), with a foreword by the knowledgeable Mr. Klinger. The book surveys a decade that delivered both the objective, ‘aesthetic’ puzzles of S.S. Van Dine and the hard-boiled, knuckle-busting sagas of Dashiell Hammett."

Wall Street Journal

"If you are searching for an impressive (and yet reasonably-priced) present for a crime fiction fancier, this volume certainly is worth considering. You get the full texts of Biggers's The House Without a Key, Van Dine's The Benson Murder Case, Ellery Queen's The Roman Hat Mystery, plus Red Harvest and Little Caesar. All are amply annotated and lavishly illustrated."

Reviewing the Evidence

"The hugely welcome revival of fiction from the Golden Age of detective fiction between the wars is given fresh impetus by Les Klinger’s eclectic, attractively produced, and splendidly annotated collection of five American classic mystery novels."

Martin Edwards

"Highly informative and fascinating."

Popular Culture Association

"Comprehensive and well researched, Leslie S. Klinger’s Classic American Crime Fiction of the 1920s is an excellent introduction to the classic era detective story."

Authorlink.com

"Its content is as impressive as its packaging. We can’t wait to page through this beautiful volume!"

LitHub

"This is a big deal. Any fan of crime fiction will grab for it.The restored texts of these five 1920s classics are reason enough to treasure this volume. Add the fascinating notes, illustrations, and historical overview supplied by master-researcher Leslie S. Klinger, along with an insightful introduction from crime-fiction authority Otto Penzler, and the result is a classic of its own, one that I’ll return to again and again."

David Morrell

"A treasure chest, packed with gumshoes and dames, Colt-.45s and fedoras, townhouses and locked rooms. Resurrecting long-gone authors and restoring their finest work to the page, this gorgeous volume is indispensable for any mystery enthusiast."

A. J. Finn

"Sumptuous. By the time Inspector Richard Queen and his bookish son Ellery arrive at Manhattan’s Roman theater to examine the dead body of crooked lawyer Monte Field, I was registering a distinct sense of well-being and contentment. This hefty volume opens with an essay by our preeminent authority on the mystery genre, Otto Penzler, followed by excellent brief introductions to each author and novel from Klinger. There’s a treasure house of illuminating and useful information here. What’s more, Pegasus has produced as handsome a volume as you could ask for, starting with the gold-embossed lettering on its cinema-marquee style dust jacket. The whole package cries ‘terrific holiday gift,’ which it is. Ideally, glamorous productions such as Klinger’s lead modern readers to good books worth rediscovering."

The Washington Post - Michael Dirda

"A treasure of information and a joy to study or simply read. By gathering these texts together and diving into them with insight and research, Klinger brings them to today’s readers in an accessible, enlightening, and entertaining way."

Washington Independent Review of Books

Its content is as impressive as the packaging, containing all the quintessential American detectives of the 1920s, plus annotations, illustrations, an introduction by Otto Penzler, and a foreword by the collection’s editor (who also just so happens to be one of the world’s foremost experts on the history of mystery). A beautiful volume!

CrimeReads (Best Anthologies of 2018)

A handsome, hefty volume, filled out by period illustrations (in both color and black-and-white), with a foreword by the knowledgeable Mr. Klinger. The book surveys a decade that delivered both the objective, ‘aesthetic’ puzzles of S.S. Van Dine and the hard-boiled, knuckle-busting sagas of Dashiell Hammett.

Wall Street Journal

Sumptuous. By the time Inspector Richard Queen and his bookish son Ellery arrive at Manhattan’s Roman theater to examine the dead body of crooked lawyer Monte Field, I was registering a distinct sense of well-being and contentment. This hefty volume opens with an essay by our preeminent authority on the mystery genre, Otto Penzler, followed by excellent brief introductions to each author and novel from Klinger. There’s a treasure house of illuminating and useful information here. What’s more, Pegasus has produced as handsome a volume as you could ask for, starting with the gold-embossed lettering on its cinema-marquee style dust jacket. The whole package cries ‘terrific holiday gift,’ which it is. Ideally, glamorous productions such as Klinger’s lead modern readers to good books worth rediscovering.

Michael Dirda

2018-08-21

A gargantuan, extensively annotated collection of five cornerstones of American crime fiction that every fan will want to own even if they never read (or reread) them.

The docket includes the first appearances of Charlie Chan (Earl Derr Biggers' The House Without a Key, 1925), Philo Vance (S.S. Van Dine's The Benson Murder Case, 1926), and Ellery Queen (Ellery Queen's The Roman Hat Mystery, 1929) as well as Red Harvest (1929), Dashiell Hammett's first novel about the Continental Op, and Little Caesar (1929), W.R. Burnett's memorably filmed account of the rise and fall of Chicago gangster Rico Bandello. Although all five novels are indispensable, most of them are more dated than you remember. Charlie Chan's appeal, which depends on his self-effacing charm and trademark aphorisms, remains constant from one case to the next, but Van Dine, Queen, and Hammett all published better mysteries within a few years of their first novels, and Burnett's clipped dialogue ("Some guys are sure careless with the lead," one of his characters says, mourning another's passing) reads like a pastiche. Philo Vance, widely perceived as insufferable even at the height of his fame, has grown no more companionable over the years, and the early Ellery Queen runs him a close second. If four of the five selections are memorable mainly as period pieces, Red Harvest still seethes with an unsettling power from its nameless hero's immersion in a mining town's labor dispute that along the way produces what must be the only chapter in all fiction titled "The Seventeenth Murder." Indefatigable editor Klinger (In the Shadow of Agatha Christie, 2018, etc.) provides an incisive foreword, annotations that argue, for example, that the events of The Benson Murder Case took place in 1918 and those of The Roman Hat Mystery in 1923, and variously salient pictures of Anthony van Dyck, Al Capone, and King Kal?kaua of Hawaii.

Though die-hard fans may find it disappointing to return to these hoary landmarks, Klinger has provided the perfect gift for newcomers lucky enough not to have read its contents already—and the perfect excuse to wonder if a 1930s sequel may be lurking around the corner.

Kirkus Reviews