GULIK, Robert van (author and illustrator). The Haunted Monastery: A Chinese Detective Story. Kuala Lumpur: Art Printing Works. 1961.
8vo. Publisher’s illustrated card covers, illustrated endpapers reproducing a map of the monastery; pp. [8], 168, with 8 full-page illustrations and a map; sunning and light creasing to spine, minor soiling to white back cover; very good.
First edition of the seventh Judge Dee novel.
Judge Dee is forced to take refuge from a storm in the Monastery of the Morning Clouds. A year before, three women had been murdered there, and it remains a forbidding and terrifying place.
Judge Dee is based on the seventh-century Tang Dynasty magistrate, Di Renjie. Van Gulik first became interested in this historical figure when he translated Dee Goong An in 1949 and continued to feature Judge Dee throughout his original crime fiction series (1949-1967). A Dutch diplomat and sinologist, Van Gulik incorporated his research into his novels and personally illustrated them; this volume contains eight of his striking woodblock-style illustrations.
Evers, p. 55.
SKU: 2124229