About this item
A riveting collection of five of the most famous crime novels of the 1920s, presenting anew some of the most admired authors of the era -- with insightful annotations by the Edgar-winning anthologist Leslie S. Klinger. American crime writing was reborn in the 1920s. After years of dominance by British authors, new American writers -- with fresh ideas about the detective and the mystery -- appeared on the scene and rose to heights of popularity not witnessed since the success of the Sherlock Holmes tales in America. Classic American Crime Writing of the 1920s -- including House Without a Key, The Benson Murder Case, The Roman Hat Mystery, Red Harvest, and Little Caesar -- offers some of the very best of that decade's writing. Earl Derr Biggers wrote about Charlie Chan, a Chinese-American detective, at a time when racism was rampant.
About the Author
Leslie S. Klinger is considered to be one of the world's foremost authorities on those icons of the Victorian era, Sherlock Holmes, Dracula, and Frankenstein. He is the editor of the three-volume collection of the short stories and novels, THE NEW ANNOTATED SHERLOCK HOLMES, published by W. W. Norton in 2004 and 2005, winner of the Edgar Award for Best Critical/Biographical Work and nominated for every other major award in the mystery genre. THE NEW ANNOTATED DRACULA, published by W. W. Norton in 2008, offers a similar in-depth examination of Bram Stoker's haunting classic and its historical context. It received a starred review in Publishers' Weekly.Since the 1960s, the study of the rich fantastic literature of the Victorian writers has been Klinger's consuming passion. He has written dozens of articles on Sherlockiana, published 20 books on Sherlock Holmes in addition to the Norton work, and regularly teaches UCLA Extension courses on "Sherlock Holmes and His World" and "Dracula and His World." Klinger's Sherlock Holmes Reference Library has been called by the Baker Street Journal "the standard text of reference for all serious Sherlockians." He contributed essays to Playboy Magazine and the Times of London on vampires and served as the technical adviser for Warner Bros. on the "Sherlock Holmes" films starring Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law. Klinger has edited several anthologies of stories relating to Holmes, vampires, horror, and Victorian fiction, including "In the Shadow of Dracula" and "In the Shadow of Sherlock Holmes" for IDW Books and "In the Shadow of Edgar Allen Poe" for Pegasus Books. He has also co-edited with Laurie R. King four anthologies of new stories about Sherlock Holmes, "A Study in Sherlock," the Anthony-winning "In the Company of Sherlock Holmes," "Echoes of Sherlock Holmes," and "For the Sake of the Game." The four-volume "The Annotated Sandman" in collaboration with Neil Gaiman for DC Entertainment appeared in 2012-14, and his "Watchmen: Annotated Edition" was published by DC Entertainment in 2017. Also in 2017, his "New Annotated Frankenstein," published by W. W. Norton, was nominated for a World Fantasy Award. Klinger's "The New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft," shortlisted for the Bram Stoker Award, appeared in 2014, and a second volume, "New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft: Beyond the Mythos" will be published by Norton in 2019. Klinger and co-editor Laura Caldwell just completed "ANATOMY OF INNOCENCE: TESTIMONIES OF THE WRONGFULLY CONVICTED," published by Liveright Publishing/W. W. Norton in 2017. This harrowing anthology pairs exonerees with major mystery/thriller writers to tell their tales of despair, hope, and courage. A nonprofit project, proceeds from the book benefit innocence projects.In 2018, Klinger published "Classic Amer
