Haycraft-Queen, continued

As previously mentioned, I've been blogging on various and sundry entries on the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone list---those mysteries deemed essential by Howard Haycraft and Ellery Queen. (See the list at right for a round-up of these posts.)

I became curious as to how many titles on the list are out of print, so checked the list against Books in Print. My results: approximately one-third (55) of the entries on the list (181 books) are out of print in the United States. A very few (e.g., Francis Iles [Anthony Berkeley Cox], Before the Fact; Edmund Crispin [Robert Bruce Montgomery], The Moving Toyshop) are available in Britain. I've reluctantly had to categorize some titles that are only available through POD as in print, knowing that some readers would prefer a traditionally published book and would not like to pay the sometimes expensive prices for POD.

I've been concerned about the overall lack of knowledge about mystery history and fear the inevitable result: the fading away of vital works such as these. I do have to admit to a lack of total accord with Messrs. Haycraft and Queen on some of their choices; I could have jogged along quite happily without ever reading A. A. Milne's The Red House Mystery (1922), which I thought was pretty awful, was glad that Raymond Chandler concurred (in The Simple Art of Murder), and wondered what all the fuss was about.

My out-of-print list follows below.

Haycraft-Queen Out-of-Print Titles in the United States
(Compiled by Elizabeth Foxwell)

Anderson Frederick Irving - The Book of Murder - 1930
Armstrong Charlotte - The Unsuspected - 1946
Bailey H. C. - The Red Castle - 1932
Benson G. R. - Tracks in the Snow - 1906
Carr John Dickson - The Crooked Hinge - 1938
Carr John Dickson - The Judas Window - 1938
Charteris Leslie [Leslie Charles Bowyer Yin] - Meet the Tiger - 1928
Coates Robert M. - Wisteria Cottage - 1948
Cole G. D. H. [G. D. H. Cole and Margaret Cole] - The Brooklyn Murders - 1923
Coles Manning [Cyril Henry Coles and Adelaide Frances Oke Manning] - Pray Silence - 1940
Crispin Edmund [Robert Bruce Montgomery] - The Moving Toyshop - 1946
Dane Clemence [Winifred Ashton] and Helen Simpson - Re-enter Sir John - 1932
Davis Dorothy Salisbury - A Gentle Murderer - 1951
De la Torre Lillian [Lillian McCue] - Dr. Sam Johnson, Detector - 1946
Dickson Carter [John Dickson Carr] - Lord of the Sorcerers - 1946
Dunsany Lord - The Little Tales of Smethers - 1952
Eberhart Mignon G. - The Patient in Room 18 - 1929
Ellin Stanley - Dreadful Summit - 1948
Eustis Helen - The Horizontal Man - 1946
Frome David - The Hammersmith Murders - 1930
Gardner Erle Stanley - The Case of the Sulky Girl - 1933
Halsey Harlan Page - Old Sleuth, the Detective - 1872
Hammett Dashiell - The Adventures of Sam Spade - 1944
Hart Frances Noyes - The Bellamy Trial - 1927
Heard H. F. - A Taste for Honey - 1941
Hughes Dorothy B. - The So Blue Marble - 1940
Iles Francis [Anthony Berkeley Cox] - Before the Fact - 1932
King Rufus - Murder by the Clock - 1929
Lawrence Hilda - Blood Upon the Snow - 1944
Lipsky Eleazar - The People Against O’Hara - 1950
Lockridge Frances and Richard Lockridge - The Norths Meet Murder - 1940
Lustgarten Edgar - A Case to Answer - 1947
MacDonald Philip - The Rasp - 1924
MacDonald Philip - The Nursemaid Who Disappeared [aka Warrant for X] - 1938
MacHarg William and Edwin Balmer - The Achievements of Luther Trant - 1910
Marquand John P. - No Hero - 1935
McCloy Helen - Through a Glass, Darkly - 1950
O’Higgins Harvey J. - Detective Duff Unravels It - 1929
Paul Elliot - The Mysterious Mickey Finn - 1939
Piper Evelyn - The Motive - 1950
Rawson Clayton - Death from a Top Hat - 1938
Rhode John - The Murders in Praed Street - 1928
Rhode John - The Paddington Mystery - 1925
Rice Craig - Trial by Fury - 1941
Rohmer Sax [Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward] - The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu - 1908
Ross Barnaby [Ellery Queen] - The Tragedy of Y - 1932
Seeley Mabel - The Listening House - 1938
Stribling T. S. - Clues of the Caribbees - 1929
Trevor Glen [James Hilton] - Murder at School [aka Was It Murder?] - 1931
Van Dine S. S. [Willard Huntington Wright] - The Benson Murder Case - 1926
Vickers Roy - The Department of Dead Ends - 1946
Walling R. A. J. - The Fatal Five Minutes - 1932
Walsh Thomas - Nightmare in Manhattan - 1950
Waters [William Russell] - Recollections of a Detective Police Officer - 1856
Wells Carolyn - The Clue - 1909