Sayers, Dorothy L (ed.) - Tales of detection (1936)

From the back cover of the Everyman Paperback edition of 1961:

The title of this very readable book is carefully chosen. The word 'detection' is used deliberately instead of the words 'thriller', or 'shocker'. These nineteen stories — they illus­trate the full development of the detective story — rely on what is known as the 'fair play' principle. There have been notable instances of 'fair play' for the reader — in Mrs Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho, for instance, where the mys­terious happenings are found to have a basis in fact. But with the increase of new discoveries of such marvels as barbituric compounds, invisible rays, infra-red photography, not to mention Freudian psychology, it became more than ever necessary to explain murder (where these fresh elements were introduced into the story) by fair means of deduction, analysis of bloodstains, tests for poison, microscopic examina­tion of bullets, and so on.

The stories in this book are by such masters as R. Austin Freeman, G. K. Chesterton, Thomas Burke, Father Ronald Knox and Agatha Christie, and all play fairly with the reader. Poe's Purloined Letter illustrates a criminal using his knowledge of psychology to outwit the police and a detective expert's methods in drawing upon psychological inferences in solving the crime. Thomas Burke's The Hands of Mr Otter-mole, for all its striking horror, has clues fairly laid. Agatha Christie provides a modern specimen of the ' perfect murder ' by psychological means — a comparison with the Stevenson tale, Was it Murder? Henry Wade's A Matter of Luck shows the reader the crime first and then proceeds with the detec­tion. H. C. Bailey's Yellow Slugs is not only first-class detection but also a characteristic expression of his passionate hatred of spiritual cruelty. And there are fourteen other stories by masters of the craft.

CONTENTS

Introduction by Sayers, Dorothy L

Poe, Edgar Allan - The Purloined Letter

Collins, Wilkie -The Biter Bit

Stevenson, Robert Louis - Was it Murder ?

Chesterton, GK - The Man in the Passage

Bentley, EC - The Clever Cockatoo

Bramah, Ernest - The Ghost at Massingham Mansions

Jepson, Edgar and Eustace, Robert - The Tea-Leaf

Freeman, R Austin - The Contents of a Mare's Nest ,

Burke, Thomas - The Hands of Mr Ottermole

Knox, Ronald - Solved by Inspection

Christie, Agatha - Philomel Cottage

Berkeley, Anthony - The Avenging Chance

Crofts, Freeman Wills - The Mystery of the Sleeping-Car Express

Rhode, John - The Elusive Bullet

Sayers, Dorothy L - The Image in the Mirror

Wade, Henry - A matter of Luck

Kennedy, Milward - Superfluous Murder

Bailey, HC - The Yellow Slugs

King, C Daly - The Episode of the Nail and the Requiem