The Little Tales Of Smethers And Other Stories - Lord Dunsany (1952)
Amongst all the books for which the Irish dramatist, poet, and fantasist Lord Dunsany (1878-1957) became deservedly famous, there was one solitary little book of detective stories. The Little Tales Of Smethers And Other Stories is an unjustly forgotten collection of twenty-six mystery and detective short stories by Dunsany, including the much-anthologized mystery story "The Two Bottles Of Relish", with its neat and devastating one-sentence solution at the end. It was first published in hardcover in London by Jarrolds in October, 1952. The dust jacket art was by Val Biro (1921-2014), who illustrated around 3000 dust wrappers over the course of his long career. Nominated by Ellery Queen in his book Queen's Quorum as an ‘unequivocal keystone’ in the history of crime writing, this quirky collection is a book that lovers of detective stories and tales of the unexpected will enjoy. Some of the stories are macabre, others have a lighter and more amusing touch, but each one stimulates the imagination and reveals the acknowledged master of the short story at his very best. The first nine stories feature Smethers, a travelling salesman for Numnumo, a company which made a relish for meats and savouries. He shares a flat with an Oxford graduate called Linley, who fancies himself as a detective and to whom Scotland Yard is inclined to turn if they encounter a particularly challenging mystery. Several stories pit the duo against the master criminal Steeger, a serial killer and spy for…
- Series
- The Little Tales Of Smethers And Other Stories
- Genres
- Crime, Mystery and detective, Fantasy
- Language
- English
- Collection
- Pulp mystery
- Licence or status
- None stated by the archive
- Who can read it
- Teens profiles and older (placed by Invisible Network from what the archive says; archives give no ratings)
- Archive
- Internet Archive