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Published by Rue Morgue Press, 2007
ISBN 10: 1601870086ISBN 13: 9781601870087
Seller: Better World Books: West, Reno, NV, U.S.A.
Book
Condition: Good. Used book that is in clean, average condition without any missing pages.
Published by Rue Morgue Press, Lyons, Colorado, U.S.A., 2007
ISBN 10: 1601870086ISBN 13: 9781601870087
Seller: MLC Books, Northfield, MN, U.S.A.
Book
Paperback. Condition: Near Fine. No Jacket. A comic mystery, first published in 1942, in which a professor investigates the death of a colleague. Gently bumped.
Published by Rue Morgue Press, Boulder, CO, U.S.A., 2007
ISBN 10: 1601870086ISBN 13: 9781601870087
Seller: MURDER BY THE BOOK, Warwick, RI, U.S.A.
Book First Edition
Pictorial Wrappers. Condition: New. Pudim, Rob (illustrator). 1st Prtg. 1st printg. A fine, unread copy of this trade paperback. A Rue Morgue Vintage Mystery. A debonair English professor with a penchant for limericks turns sleuth when bodies show up in the stacks at an Ivy League library . Professor Parry was tall, blond and handsome. His only flaws were his thinning hair and an uncontrollable urge to inject original limericks into every conversation. When a black -haired, black-eyed professor of French (whose accent was said to take on the flavor of garlic when she got excited) is found dead in the college library, Parry has personal reasons to look into her death. Set at a thinly disguised version of Cornell University, The Widening Stain was written by a Cornell professor of romance literature (later its provost) who frequently contributed short humor pieces to The New Yorker, Saturday Evening Post and Life. He pubished his only mystery under a pseudonym and denied, at least in jest, authorship. A copy of the book was found in the Cornell Library with the following limerick scribbled on the flyleaf: A cabin in northern Wisconsin / Is what I would be for the nonce in, / To be rid of the pain / Of The Widening Stain / And W. Bolingbroke Johnson . But the only pain readers will suffer will come from laughing so hard their sides might split. Published in 1942, the book was an immediate hit, going into several printings. Trade Paperback.
Published by Cornell University Library Associates [Knopf 1942], 1976
Seller: Arroyo Seco Books, Pasadena, Member IOBA, Pasadena, CA, U.S.A.
Association Member: IOBA
Book
Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 2nd Edition. 242 Pp. Brown Cloth. Reprint Of The 1942 Bibliomystery Set At The Cornell University Library, By The University Librarian. Fine In Lightly Worn Dust Jacket With 1/2" Tear At Top Of Front Spine Edge.
Published by Cornell University Library Associates, Ithaca, NY, 1976
Seller: Black Cat Hill Books, Oregon City, OR, U.S.A.
First Edition
Hardcover. Very Good+ in Good+ DJ: The Book shows mild wear to the extremities; faint foxing to the top and fore-edges; the binding is square and secure; the text is clean. Free of creased or dog-eared pages in the text. Free of any underlining, hi-lighting or marginalia or marks in the text. Free of any ownership names, dates, addresses, notations, inscriptions, stamps, plates, or labels. A handsome copy, structurally sound and tightly bound, showing mild wear and a minor, unobtrusive cosmetic imperfection. The DJ shows slight loss to chipping at the head of the backstrip and a couple of short, closed tears at the top of the front panel; a tiny snag at the bottom edge of the front panel; the rear panel, while free of such problems shows toning to the outside edges of the white background field and some faint soiling due to rubbing; unclipped; mylar-protected. Intact, but showing some wear and cosmetic imperfections. NOT a Remainder, Book-Club, or Ex-Library. 8vo. (7.75 x 5.55 x 1 inches). 242 pages. Language: English. Weight: 15 ounces. Borwn cloth over boards with lavender designs at the outside edge of the front panel and backstrip and lavender designs at the backstrip. Distinctive DJ designed by E. McKnight Kauffer. Facsmile of the 1942 Alfred A. Knopf Edition, produced in 1976 for friends and members of Cornell University Library Associates. Hardback with DJ. Morris Gilbert Bishop (1893 1973) was an American scholar, historian, biographer, essayist, translator, anthologist, and poet. Bishop had a mystery novel, The Widening Stain, published in 1942 under the pseudonym W. Bolingbroke Johnson (described on the jacket as a former librarian for the American Dairy Goat Association and Okmulgee Agricultural and Mechanical Institute). The book derives both its suspense and its considerable humor from its grotesque mixture of the oil of sex with the water of academic life". Much of it is set in a university library that, according to his daughter Alison Jolly, borrowed from those of Yale and Cornell. Its sleuth is Gilda Gorham, Chief Cataloger of the library; who according to Bishop's granddaughter Margaretta Jolly appears to be based on his wife. The review in The New York Times concluded, "We do not know who W. Bolingbroke Johnson is, but he writes a good story with an academic atmosphere that is not so highly rarefied as we have been led to believe it should be in university circles." A review in The Spectator described the book (and Percival Wilde's novel Tinsley's Bones) as "good American detective stories, and as bright and cheerful as it is possible to be about murder." This tale of murder in the Cornell University Library that became a sort of cult classic after the first edition, published by Alfred A. Knopf, went through three printings in February and March of 1942. A London edition was published by John Lane in 1943, and a French translation was published in Paris in 1948. Facsmile of the 1942 Alfred A. Knopf Edition, produced in 1976 for friends and members of Cornell University Library Associates.
Condition: Fair. First edition copy. . Book Good. No dust jacket. (Vintage Adventure and Mystery, Mystery, Adventure, Book Thefts, Library Employees).
Published by The Cornell University Library Associates, Ithaca, NY, 1976
Seller: Parigi Books, Vintage and Rare, Schenectady, NY, U.S.A.
Hardcover. 242pp. Cloth. A fine copy in very good+ dustjacket with a short closed tear to upper edge. ; Octavo.
Published by The Cornell University Library Associates, Binghampton: NY, 1976
Seller: MURDER BY THE BOOK, Warwick, RI, U.S.A.
First Edition
Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. Kauffer, E. McKnight (illustrator). First Edition Thus. 1st. edition thus. This is a facsimile edition published by The Cornell University Library Associates for its members and for friends of Cornell University, very low print run. Top of page edges spotted else near fine in dust jacket. A debonair English professor with a penchant for limericks turns sleuth when bodies show up in the stacks at an Ivy League library . Professor Parry was tall, blond and handsome. His only flaws were his thinning hair and an uncontrollable urge to inject original limericks into every conversation. When a black -haired, black-eyed professor of French (whose accent was said to take on the flavor of garlic when she got excited) is found dead in the college library, Parry has personal reasons to look into her death. Set at a thinly disguised version of Cornell University, The Widening Stain was written by a Cornell professor of romance literature (later its provost) who frequently contributed short humor pieces to The New Yorker, Saturday Evening Post and Life. He pubished his only mystery under a pseudonym and denied, at least in jest, authorship. A copy of the book was found in the Cornell Library with the following limerick scribbled on the flyleaf: A cabin in northern Wisconsin / Is what I would be for the nonce in, / To be rid of the pain / Of The Widening Stain / And W. Bolingbroke Johnson . But the only pain readers will suffer will come from laughing so hard their sides might split. Published in 1942, the book was an immediate hit, going into several printings. Book.
Published by New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1942. dj, 1942
Seller: Bookfever, IOBA (Volk & Iiams), Ione, CA, U.S.A.
Hardcover - 3rd printing, just one month after the first, Humorous bibliomystery set in the Cornell University Library, published under a pseudonym by Cornell's librarian at the time. "Seldom if ever has there been a mystery story quite like this one. Yes, there are murders in it- two of them, in fact. And there's a mystery of other descriptions too. . There is a lot of curious esoteric lore here and there, of special interest to bibliophiles." 242 pp. Dust jacket by E. McKnight Kauffer. Good only in a fair dust jacket (some spine slant, significant edgewear to the dj, with a long tear along the side of the spine, etc. but overall a reasonable copy of a rather hard to find original edition.).
Published by Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1942
Seller: Cat's Curiosities, Pahrump, NV, U.S.A.
Book Signed
Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. Jacket by E. McKnight Kauffer (illustrator). Original (3rd) 1942 printing; jacket "very good" with rub to edges and a small (3/8ths-inch, 1 cm.) chip to heel of jacket spine. Yes, there are two murders to be solved, but most of the madcap action here occurs inside the Cornell University Library -- of which the author (despite a facetious biography here claiming he was born in Rabbit Hash Landing, Kentucky, and served as librarian of the American Dairy Goat Association) was head librarian. Rife with bookish lore, an uncommon bibliomystery, particularly inscribed, as here. This is the "Third printing, March, 1942." (The first was February, 1942.) The publisher has clipped the original price and overprinted to top of jacket front flap a new price of $2.00. Datelined to the blank FFE "The Burdocks, Zambesi, 17 Oct. 1936" (probably more levity, as this book was published 1942), signed "W. Bolingbroke Johnson," and inscribed to Arthur and Suzanne Sutherland. Arthur E. Sutherland, Wesleyan '22, Harvard Law '25 (Case Editor, Harvard Law Review), law clerk to Justice Holmes 1927-1928, served with Gen. Teddy Roosevelt (the only general to insist on going ashore with the first wave on D-Day, Croix de Guerre, Congressional Medal of Honor) in North Africa (where he likely would have been in 1942) and at Anzio, and as an aide to Gen. Mark Clark, retiring as a colonel, Bronze Star, Croix de Guerre. He taught at Cornell Law School 1945-1949 (where he obviously knew author Bishop/ Bolingbroke Johnson, indicating this book may actually have been signed circa 1946 ), moving back to teach at Harvard Law 1950-1970, where he was described by Prof. Paul A. Freund as "one of the most popular Law School Faculty members within the larger University." 242 pp., now reduced from $470. Inscribed by Author(s).