Crippen & Landru

“Lost Classics” from Crippen and Landru

Starting in 2002, Crippen and Landru, a small Norfolk, Virginia press run by Sandra, Doug, and Eric Greene, began releasing a series of neglected short detective fiction. As their website describes, “The idea behind ‘Lost Classics’ is simple — and tremendously exciting. There are many authors of the past who wrote excellent short detective tales. These previously uncollected, and in many cases nearly unknown, stories should be brought to a new generation of readers. We are locating these works by contacting the authors’ heirs, major collectors, and archives of crumbling pulp, digest, and slick magazines. The first printing of each book will be small — perhaps 400-500 copies, divided between clothbound copies in dustjacket, and trade softcover.”

This initiative deserves the support of mystery fans everywhere, given that the price of Crippen & Landru’s editions is a fraction of what it would cost to locate, purchase, and assemble one’s own collection of these stories.

• The Newtonian Egg and Other Cases of Rolf le Roux by Peter Godfrey

The South African expert on impossible crimes

• Murder, Mystery and Malone by Craig Rice

The great mistress of screwball comedy

• The Sleuth of Baghdad by Charles B. Child

The first collection of Inspector Chafik stories, published in Colliers and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine between 1947 and 1969

• Hildegarde Withers: Uncollected Riddles by Stuart Palmer

Lost cases solved by the schoolmarm sleuth

• The Spotted Cat and Other Mysteries from Inspector Cockrill’s Casebook by Christianna Brand

The complete Cockrill mysteries, including three unpublished stories

• Marksman and Other Stories by William Campbell Gault

The first collection of tales by an author who began in the great pulps and continued with the creation of Joe Puma, one of the greatest modern private eyes

• Karmesin, The World’s Greatest Thief – or Most Outrageous Liar by Gerald Kersh

Perhaps the most imaginative crook stories ever written

• The Complete Curious Mr. Tarrant by C. Daly King

The classic 1935 volume, The Curious Mr. Tarrant, plus 4 previously uncollected stories

• The Pleasant Assassin and Other Cases of Dr. Basil Willing by Helen McCloy

The complete short stories about the psychiatric sleuth

• Murder All Kinds by William L. DeAndrea

The collected stories by the 3-time Edgar Winner

• The Avenging Chance and Other Mysteries from Roger Sheringham’s Casebook by Anthony Berkeley, edited by Tony Medawar and Arthur Robinson

Classic tales from the Golden Age

• Banner Deadlines by Joseph Commings, edited by Robert Adey

Locked rooms and other impossible crimes, solved by Senator Brooks U. Banner

• The Danger Zone and Other Stories by Erle Stanley Gardner, edited by Bill Pronzini

Uncollected tales by the creator of Perry Mason

• Dr. Poggioli: Criminologist by T. S. Stribling, edited by Arthur Vidro

Uncollected stories by the Pulitzer Prize winner

• The Couple Next Door: Collected Short Mysteries by Margaret Millar, edited by Tom Nolan

Little known stories by a mistress of suspense, and wife of Ross Macdonald

• Sleuth’s Alchemy: Cases of Mrs. Bradley and Others by Gladys Mitchell, edited by Nicholas Fuller

Never reprinted tales by one of the great classic authors

• Who Was Guilty?: Two Dime Novels by Phillip S. Warne, edited by Marlena Bremset

The first detective stories by an African-American

• Slot-Machine Kelly by Dennis Lynds writing as Michael Collins

Early private-eye stories by one of the greats in the genre

• The Detections of Francis Quarles by Julian Symons, edited by John Cooper

Classic fairplay detective stories

Forthcoming Titles

• The Evidence of the Sword: The Mystery Stories of Rafael Sabatini by Rafael Sabatini, edited by Jesse Knight
• The Casebook of Sidney Zoom by Erle Stanley Gardner, edited by Bill Pronzini
• The Trinity Cat and Other Mysteriesby Ellis Peters (Edith Pargeter), edited by Martin Edwards and Sue Feder

• The Grandfather Rastin Mysteries by Lloyd Biggle Jr.
  Detection in smalltown America by one of the greatest science-fiction writers

• Masquerade: Nine Crime Stories by Max Brand, edited by William F. Nolan
  Crime and detection by “The King of the Pulps.”

• The Battles of Jericho by Hugh Pentecost, introduction by S.T. Karnick
• Dead Yesterday and Other Mysteries by Mignon G. Eberhart, edited by Rick Cypert and Kirby McCauley
• The Minerva Club, The Department of Patterns, and Other Stories by Victor Canning, edited by John Higgins
• The Casebook of Gregory Hood by Anthony Boucher and Denis Green, edited by Joe R. Christopher
• Ten Thousand Blunt Instruments by Philip Wylie, edited by Bill Pronzini

• The Adventures of Señor Lobo by Erle Stanley Gardner, edited by Bill Pronzini