Books

London and Brisbane: The Amalgamated Press Limited / Gordon and Gotch, n. d. (1908)., 1908. First edition. First English edition of this Haycraft-Queen cornerstone title. Colonial Issue. 8vo. Original pictorial wrappers, 6, vi, 122 pp., double column, illustrated from frontispiece and two plates by Cyrus Cuneo and drawings, advertisement for the "Daily Mail" Sixpenny Novels which lists the first 53 titles with this being title number 54 in the series. Well-preserved copy of Leroux's seminal "locked room" mystery, an important, early cornerstone of the genre. "The amateur detective in The Mystery of the Yellow Room and several later Leroux novels is Joseph Rouletabille, who has become a cub reporter for a Paris newspaper at the age of sixteen. Only two years have passed when the events of the novel take place, making him one of the youngest sleuths in adult mystery fiction. The case concerns Mademoiselle Strangerson, who had retired to bed in the room of the title. Her cries…