Berkeley

1934 · Best.-Nr. 1703 — Garden City New York: Doubleday Doran & Co. The Crime Club 1934. First American Edition. Near Fine. 8vo 7 1/2 x 5 1/4 inches 190 x 130 mm; 8 347 pp. Publisher's red cloth title in black on spine and a skeleton figure on cover with "Member's Edition" scroll top edge stained red. Spine a tad faded with extremities lightly rubbed; binding tight paper evenly toned pages clean. The Crime Club edition and binding. Bookplate of Elisabeth Rall pasted inside front cover. Published the same year in the U.K. with the title "Panic Party" this is the tenth and final of Berkeley's novels to feature the amateur detective Roger Sheringham. When reviewing this title on 3rd June 1934 Dorothy L. Sayers sums up the plot as follows: 'A rich cynic maroons an ill-assorted generation of human vipers on a desert island informs them just for fun that one of them is an undetected murderer and sits back to enjoy their reactions. The first reaction very rightly is the murder of the cynic; after which Roger Sheringham has to grapple with the reactions to that.' Anthony Berkeley Cox 1893 - 1971 is today recognized as a key figure in the development of crime fiction. He wrote under several pen-names including Francis Iles Anthony Berkeley and A. Monmouth Platts. He was educated at Sherborne School and University College Oxford. He served in the British Army during the First World War and worked as a journalist for many years contributing to such magazines as Punch and The Humorist. His first novel was published in 1925 and it introduced the amateur detective Robert Sheringham who would feature in many of his novels through 1934. In 1930 Berkeley founded the Detection Club in London along with Agatha Christie Freeman Wills Crofts Dorothy L. Sayers Hugh Walpole and other established mystery writers. Several of his books were adapted for the screen including "Before the Fact" adapted by Alfred Hitchcock as "Suspicion" starring Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine. Doubleday, Doran & Co. (The Crime Club) unknown