Collecting Philo Vance
In the early 1920s, the brilliant art and literary critic Willard Huntington Wright, though still a young man, was seriously ill and desperately broke. His physician suggested that he turn to reading mysteries, a form of literature he disdained, for relaxation. In a few short years, Wright created his own detective, Philo Vance, and won world fame writing under his pseudonym, S.S. Van Dine.

S.S. Van Dine: An Annotated Checklist
The first and the last of the Philo Vance novels are difficult challenges for any collector. We also include a list of books published under Van Dine’s real name, Willard Huntington Wright.

Behind The Black Mask
The most famous of the men who wrote for the most prestigious of all the pulp magazines went on to become immortals in the mystery genre: Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner and Horace McCoy. But the work of many other “Black Mask Boys” also formed the backbone magazine’s fame.

Leslie Turner White
During the course of a career that began in the 1930s, White wrote more than 500 stories and published 20 novels. He began with mystery stories in the “rough and tumble school” of the pulps, but eventually gained his greatest success writing adventure stories.

Books into Film
The Kennel Murder Case, a novel by S. S. Van Dine; a film by Michael Curtiz

Ten Years Ago
November 1994 Checklist Update: Lawrence Block