Stories of detection and mystery
By: selected and adapted by E.J.H. Morris and D.J. Mortimer ; illustrated by Barry Wilkinson
Contributors: Mortimer, D. J.
Series: Longman simplified English series
Publisher: Longman
Published: 1965
Place of publication: Burnt Mill, Harlow
Language: eng
Number of pages: 150
ISBN-13: 9780582528956
Subjects: Readers
Notes: Longman Simplified English Series

This book has been specially prepared to make enjoyable reading for people to whom English is a second or a foreign language. An English writer never thinks of avoiding unusual words, so that the learner, trying to read the book in its original form, has to turn frequently to the dictionary and so loses much of the pleasure that the book ought to give.

This series is planned for such readers. There are very few words used which are outside the learner's vocabulary¹. These few extra words are needed for the story and are explained when they first appear. Long sentences and difficult sentence patterns have been simplified. The resulting language is good and useful English, and the simplified book keeps much of the charm and flavour of the original.

At a rather more difficult level there is The Bridge Series. which helps the reader to cross the gap between the limited vocabulary and structures of the Simplified English Series and full English.

It is the aim of these two series to enable thousands of readers to enjoy without great difficulty some of the best books written in the English language, and in doing so, to equip themselves in the pleasantest possible way, to understand and appreciate any work written in English.

¹The 2,000 root words of the General Service List of English Words of the Interim Report on Vocabulary Selection.
Table of contents: title: The blue cross / G.K. Chesterton; title: Philomel Cottage / Agatha Christie; title: An unpleasant man / Cyril Hare; title: The unlucky theatre / Elliott O'Donnell; title: The mezzotint / M.R. James; title: Family affair / Margery Allingham; title: The invisible man / G.K. Chesterton; title: The case of the thing that whimpered / Dennis Wheatley.