PHILO VANCE MURDER CASES: THE SCARAB MURDER CASE, THE KENNEL MURDER CASE, THE DRAGON MURDER CASE

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936., 1936. First edition. First edition thus. Fine, bright, square copy in dust jacket with light wear to the spine ends and corners. Cream colored cloth, titles stamped in black on the front cover and spine, black endpapers, [10], 1037 pp., frontispiece [drawing of Van Dine by James Montgomery Flagg], introduction, illustrated. Introduction by S. S. Van Dine. Otto Penzler in his bibliography of Van Dine, page 31 says "Of greater significance is the introduction, previously published as I USED TO BE A HIGHBROW BUT LOOK AT ME NOW, in which Van Dine writes about the inception of the Philo Vance stories and many other autobiographical details, and the complete list, slightly amplified from its original magazine publication (in the September 1928 issue of the AMERICAN magazine) of his "Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories." Each of the three novels has an individual introduction and there is a lengthy biography of Van Dine by William Stanley Braithwaite, as well as a similar treatment of Philo Vance by Y. B. Garden, including Vance's Who's Who entry. Ten full-page illustrations and movie actors who portrayed him, plus numerous drawings and maps, further enhance this remarkable volume." An exceptional copy of a scarce book and significantly less common than any of the three novels collected in it.