The Best Crime Stories Ever Told
By: edited by Dorothy L. Sayers ; introduction by Otto Penzler
Edition: printing (2)
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2012
Place of publication: New York, NY
Language: eng
Number of pages: 566
ISBN-13: 9781620870495
Copyright date: 2012
Subjects: American Detective and mystery stories; English Detective and mystery stories
Description: When acclaimed mystery writer Dorothy L. Sayers first began compiling anthologies of the best crime stories in the 1920s and ’30s, the genre was in the flush of its first golden age. While it is hard to imagine today—after every possible mystery plot has been told, retold, subverted, and played straight again by hundreds of writers over nearly a century—in Sayers’s day there were still twists that had never been seen, and machinations of crime that would shock even jaded Jazz Age readers.

Now today’s fans of mystery and crime can experience a handpicked collection featuring 26 outstanding stories from this era, originally chosen by Sayers and newly introduced by Otto Penzler. As a prolific writer of the genre, Sayers understood the balance between solvability and obfuscation that is the defining feature of great crime stories—and these are some of the greatest.

This is a treasure trove for fans of classic mystery stories!
--back cover
Table of contents: title: Introduction by Otto Penzler; title: Detection and mystery. Lord Chizelrigg's missing fortune / Robert Barr; title: The ordinary hair-pins / E.C. Bentley; title: The biter bit / William Wilkie Collins; title: The mystery of the sleeping-car express / Freeman Wills Crofts; title: Blind gap moor / J. S. Fletcher; title: The Regent's Park murder / Baroness Orczy; title: Mystery and horror. Miss Bracegirdle does her duty / Stacy Aumonier; title: The leech of Folkestone / R. H. Barham; title: A.V. Laider / Max Beerbohm; title: Cut-throat farm / J. D. Beresford; title: The damned thing / Ambrose Bierce; title: Secret worship / Algernon Blackwood; title: No. 17 / Mrs. E. Bland; title: The open boat / Stephan Crane; title: Riesenberg / Ford Madox Ford; title: The prayer / Violet Hunt; title: The well / W. W.Jacobs; title: Mr. Justice Harbottle / J. S. Le Fanu; title: The haunted and the haunters / Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton; title: The great return / Arthur Machen; title: The story of the Greek slave /  Frederick Marryat; title: Anty Bligh /John Masefield; title: The bell-tower / Herman Melville; title: The library window / Mrs. Oliphant; title: Rose Rose / Barry Pain; title: Berenice / Edgar Allan Poe; title: The roll-call of the reef / Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch; title: Sredni vashtar "saki"/ (H. H. Munro); title: Called to the rescue / Henry Spicer; title: The inexperienced ghost / H. G. W. Wells.