Golden Age Bibliomysteries

In these classic mystery tales, literature is a matter of life or death

Of crime fiction’s many subgenres, none is so reflexive and so intriguing as the “bibliomystery.” These are stories that involve crimes set, somehow, in the world of books―stories that feature a book scout as a sleuth, for example, or that find a literary heir killing to preserve an estate. Perhaps because it deals with a subject that authors know well, this type of plot comes up throughout the history of the genre.

This volume collects the finest of such stories written by American authors during the Golden Age of mystery―the decades between the two World Wars. It includes works by household names such as Cornell Woolrich and John Dickson Carr, and less-remembered writers such as James Gould Cozzens and Lawrence Blochman.

A real treat for bibliophiles.”
―Kirkus

Otto Penzler, the creator of American Mystery Classics, is also the founder of the Mysterious Press (1975); Mysterious Press.com (2011), an electronic-book publishing company; and New York City’s Mysterious Bookshop (1979). He has won a Raven, the Ellery Queen Award, two Edgars (for the Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection, 1977, and The Lineup, 2010), and lifetime achievement awards from Noircon and The Strand Magazine. He has edited more than 70 anthologies and written extensively about mystery fiction.

See more titles by Otto Penzler