The Queen's Awards - a complete set of the first 10 volumes

Boston: Little, Brown and Company. Very Good. 1946-1955. First Edition. Hardcover. (no dust jackets) [all volumes are good sound copies with modest handling wear, occasional light bumping at a corner and a bit of soiling to the edges of the text blocks; two volumes have portions of the original jackets affixed to the pastedowns, and one book is an ex-rental library volume; additionally, the books' previous owner has written his name plus date & place of purchase on the front endpaper of each volume, and the tables of contents in all books bear ink check-marks and other indications of the p.o.'s reading achievements]. A complete set of the first ten volumes presenting the winning entries in the Annual Detective Short-Story Contest sponsored by "Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine." The idea, as explained in the Introduction to the first volume, was to solicit entries from around the world for "the best original detective or crime story of 5,000-to-10,000 words, by amateur or professional, old-timer or new-timer," and to collect those entries adjudged the best in a hardcover volume following their publication in the magazine. (The first year's contest netted 838 entries, from around the world and from every State in the Union -- except North Dakota, where apparently, as Sherlock Holmes would have put it, the game was not afoot.) It's quite likely, therefore, that for most of the 125 or so stories published over the course of this series, these annual volumes represent their first publication in book form. (It's notable that the William Faulkner story "An Error in Chemistry," rated that distinction in the first volume (albeit only as a "Second Prize" story). In any event, this was kind of a golden age for short fiction in this genre, and many of its distinguished practitioners are represented (often multiple times) in these pages, among them: Philip MacDonald, Ngaio Marsh, Kenneth Millar (Ross Macdonald), Q. Patrick, Leslie Charteris, Helen McCloy, Jack Finney, Brett Halliday, Stanley Ellin, Jorge Luis Borges(!), Georges Simenon, Nicholas Blake, Ben Hecht, Fredric Brown, John Dickson Carr, John D. MacDonald, C.S. Forester, Dorothy Salisbury Davis, Lillian de la Torre, Charlotte Armstrong, Roy Vickers, Margaret Millar, Margery Allingham, James Yaffe, and Wade Miller. After the first ten years of publication by Little, Brown & Co., the series was taken over by Simon and Schuster, although they seem to have given up after issuing just two more volumes (as did the British publishers, Collins/Crime Club); the awards themselves, however, continue to be presented to the present day. ****NOTE that additional postage charges will be assessed for international shipping of this ten-volume set, or for Priority Mail service to U.S. destinations; if this concerns you, please contact us for a shipping quote before placing your order.**** .