the first railway detective stories

An extremely rare early detective fiction title, with only one previous auction record we could find, describing a copy rebound in custom boards. No records in the original wrappers. Ellery Queen gives it the Queen's Quorum top rank, 'HQR' ('Historical Significance', 'Quality' & 'Rare'). The first of the 'railway' subgenre, Whitechurch's collected stories introduce his detective Thorpe Hazell, a railway expert. They were subsequently adapted for BBC Radio, read by Benedict Cumberbatch, no less.

First edition; 8vo; advertisements, in-text plans, typical toning; publisher's pictorial wrappers, several soft creases to wrappers, light edge wear with some paper loss at corners and spine ends, some repair work to backstrip, general mild rubbing with very little colour loss, two short tears to rear wrapper; housed in custom book-backed slip-case, one-quarter reddish-brown leather over brown cloth, brown leather spine label stamped in gilt.

Queen's Quorum 51