RARA-AVIS: Doubleday Crime Club

From: Richard Moore (moorich@aol.com)
Date: 23 Oct 2008

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    The Crime Club was the "brand" imprint of Doubleday's mystery line from 1928 to 1991. Having an imprint brand was common among publishers in the middle decades of the 20th Century. Duell, Sloan and Pearce had their "Bloodhound Mysteries" that included a logo of a bloodhound with its nose to the ground. J.P. Lippincott had the
    "Mainline Mysteries" with a neat logo that featured the front of a railroad locomotive encircled by a skull. There were a good many others but I won't detail them here.

    Doubleday Crime Club was never a club in the sense of being a subscription book club. It was a very powerful force in the mystery world for many years as was its long-time editor Isabelle Taylor. In my view, the typical Crime Club novel was not the type of fiction discussed on the list. Not all were cozies but few came within hooting distance of the hardboiled.

    It did publish some excellent books including several by one of my favorites the Australian Arthur W. Upfield and as well as novels by Leigh Brackett, Frederick C. Davis, Baynard Kendrick, Leslie Charteris, Joe Hensley, Ruth Rendell. Way back, it published Edgar Wallace, Sax Rohmer, Van Wyck Mason, Margery Allingham, and Philip MacDonald.

    There is a great book DOUBLEDAY CRIME CLUB COMPENDIUM 1928-1991 by the late Ellen Nehr. Ellen was a dear friend of mine and others on this list and she was a pioneer in researching and writing up obscure writers. They were often stunned when contacted by someone who had read and enjoyed the novels they had written decades before. She was also a master at getting other people to research for her as I discovered when I found myself in the Alexandria Virginia library consulting city directories for information on Audrey Walz who wrote several excellent novels under the name of Francis Bonnamy. I even located her house in Alexandria which served at the crime scene for her A KING IS DEAD ON QUEEN STREET.

    Her followup work to the Doubleday book (which won the Anthony award at Bouchercon) was a similar volume on the lending library publishers, such as Phoenix Press, Gateway, Arcadia and others. At her death, her friend Bill Deeck continued the research until cancer claimed him a couple of years ago. Thanks to Bill Pronzini and Steve Lewis, MURDER AT 3 CENTS A DAY Was published for for more information go to http://www.lendinglibmystery.com/

    Richard Moore

    --- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan G. Jensen"
    <jcentaur@...> wrote:
    >
    > Out from lurking here, wasn't there a Crime Club bunch of books
    too?� Seem to remember them from a antique store near Eugene Or. Passed on them at the time, may still check back someday (probably be gone I know).� I saw these advertised in a pulp somewhere, anybody see this?� Jonathan
    >
    > --- On Wed, 10/22/08, Terry Sanford <mbtbone@...> wrote:
    > From: Terry Sanford <mbtbone@...>
    > Subject: RARA-AVIS: Detective Book Club - Walter J. Black
    > To: rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
    > Date: Wednesday, October 22, 2008, 2:23 PM
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    > Black began publishing single, then double and finally,
    triple book club volumes in the 1950's. Erle Stanley Gardner was a mainstay for many years. The bodks also had dust jackets over brown cloth initially. The series continued well into the 1990's. The "hook" to get you started with them was five volumes (15 books in all!) for a buck with no obligation to buy more. If you didn't send that card back to them, then one was mailed to you every month.There are, of course, people who collect these. I once saw a complete collection which was housed in a 20' by 60" room although she did collect other books as well. I didn't get a number of them since I had no interest in them. There were a handful of books published by them in this format which were true first editions, the first published appearance of said book. I know one of Roy Vicker's novels fell in this category along with a collection of Matt Taylor's humorous detective stories from Good
    > Housekeeping
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    > Magazine! Yes the same guy who wrote the tough Neon novels with his
    wife in the 1980's.Cheap reads when you can them these days.Terry Sanford
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