The Whole Thing has a Great Charm and Freshness
GULIK, Robert van (author and illustrator). The Chinese Maze Murders: A Chinese Detective Story Suggested by Three Original Ancient Chinese Plots. The Hague and Bandung: W. Van Hoeve. 1956.
8vo. Publisher’s black cloth lettered in red to upper board and spine, with small red vignette to upper board; bright orange illustrated jacket designed by the author, with the rare wrap-around promotional band featuring Agatha Christie’s endorsement; pp. xiii, [1 (blank)], 322, with 19 illustrated plates by the author; jacket with light wear to the hinges of the flaps, some toning to spine and white rear panel, and slight spotting to the reverse; promotional band with a few closed tears (c. 2 cm to front) and light toning and spotting to white areas; small bookseller’s label to pastedown; slight offsetting to endpapers; overall a remarkably clean and bright copy; near fine.
First English edition of the second Judge Dee novel, with the rare promotional wrap-around band bearing Agatha Christie’s endorsement, in which she writes that she “enjoyed the book immensely. The whole thing has a great charm and freshness and I hope it will have a great success”.
Although the publisher’s blurb notes that “nowadays readers of detective stories often voice the complaint that it becomes increasingly difficult to find a crime novel that brings something entirely new”, Van Gulik innovates by deliberately returning to the past: his detective, Judge Dee, is based on the seventh-century Tang dynasty magistrate Di Renjie, while the narrative follows ancient plots, structured around the solution of three interlinked cases.
The Chinese Maze Murders was first published in Japanese in 1950; this 1956 edition is the first appearance of the novel in English.
Evers, p. 51.
SKU: 2124218