The Kennel Murder Case: A Philo Vance Story

$1,500 · Offered by Book Collector Inc

Author: S. S. Van Dine [PSEUD Willard Huntington Wright (1888-1939)] signed with letter Year: 1933 Publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons Place: New York Description: 307+[1 blank]+[6 ad] pages with diagrams. Small octavo (7 3/4" x 5 1/2") bound in publisher's original black cloth with chartreuse lettering to spine and cover in original jacket. An association letter laid in from the author signed. First edition with the first printing "A" on copyright page. Typed letter to Mrs Carolyn Wells Houghton signed with original envelope. Carolyn Wells (1862-1942) was an American writer and poet. Wells was married to Hadwin Houghton, the heir of the Houghton-Mifflin publishing empire founded by Bernard Houghton. She heard That Affair Next Door (1897), one of Anna Katharine Green's mystery novels, being read aloud and was immediately captivated by the unraveling of the puzzle. From that point onward she devoted herself to the mystery genre. Among the most famous of her mystery novels were the Fleming Stone Detective Stories which—according to Allen J. Hubin's Crime Fiction IV: A Comprehensive Bibliography, 1749–2000 (2003)—number 61 titles. Wright wrote as a critic and journalist until 1923, when he became ill from what was given out as overwork, but was in reality a secret drug addiction, according to John Loughery's biography Alias S.S. Van Dine. His doctor confined him to bed (supposedly because of a heart ailment, but actually because of a cocaine addiction) for more than two years. In

• Printing: first
• Binding: Hardcover

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