Angus B. Reach

Finely bound and beautifully illustrated early edition of the first full-length detective novel in England.

• Angus B. Reach (English).
• Illustrated by George Cruikshank (English).
• Clement Lorimer or The Book with the Iron Clasps.
• London: John Lofts, 1853.
• Illustrated with 12 full-page black and white engravings
• Bound in three-quarter leather by Zaehnsdorf over marbled boards with elaborate spine treatment involving decorative gilt and color treatments, matching marbled endpapers and built-in bookmark, top edges gilt.

According to Eric Quayle in The Collector’s Book of Books, this is "the first full-length novel of crime, mystery and modern detection to appear in England ... Reach was employed as a crime reporter at the Central Criminal Court while working for the London newspaper The Morning Chronicle. In 1848–9, he published in six monthly parts a tale of vendetta, murder, racehorse doping, slow poisoning and abduction, and other dastardly deeds." The present work constituted the first book publication of this now-famous work.