Jim wrote:
I picked up today a "collector's item" published by the Detective Book
Club (aka Walter Black, Roslyn, NY). It was one of their three-in-one
mystery collections, but bound in a heavy blue leather or leatherette,
with gilt ends and a ribbon marker. The three books a

- Erle Stanley Gardner, THE CASE OF THE EMPTY TIN
- Agatha Christie, EVIL UNDER THE SUN
- The Lockridges, A PINCH OF POISON

The three novels were orignally publshed in 1941, but their copyrights
are all listed as renewed in 1969, which is when I assume this book
comes from. There's a limitation page which says "Copy 142 of 170
copies."

There's nothing else in or on the book to indicate why this elaborate
production. Any ideas?

As I said over in the flames-trolls-n-spammers thread this isn't my
field, but it does seem as if Walter Black do a lot of limited
leather-bound editions. For example, the following Zane Grey works all
came out in that form:

- The Light of Western Stars
- The Rainbow Trail and The Desert Crucible (the Walter lack edition is
bound as Horse Heaven Hill)
- Mysterious Rider
- The Thundering Herd
- The Vanishing American
(http://www.zgws.org/zgfechrono.html)

The website doesn't give any dates for any of these editions. The same
site also lists later Zane Grey from the 1970s in Walter Black editions
(The Wolf Tracker, The Camp Robber and Other Stories, Angler's
Eldorado), but they are glassine and not limited.

I don't know if that's any help, but that's all I've managed to find so
far. If Bob Finnan will stop flogging dead horses over in the
Chrodspeller thread, he may be better able to help than I am.


John