Les 13 mystères

First edition, one of 50 copies on pur fil paper, the only deluxe-paper copies (cf. Claude Menguy).

A rare and fine copy, mistakenly lettered "alfa" halfway down the spine, though certainly printed on Lafuma pur fil paper (no copies were printed on alfa paper).

White wrappers reserved for the deluxe-paper copies, the photographic wrappers being used only for the ordinary issue.

With this collection, photography entered Simenon's crime fiction for the first time. Originally published in 1929 in the weekly Détective under the pseudonym Georges Sim, these thirteen investigations featuring the armchair detective Joseph Leborgne, who solves crimes without leaving his hotel room, formed a genuine prize competition: each week, readers were presented with an enigmatic photograph alongside the text and invited to discover the solution before it was published, with prizes for the winners. Collected in book form by Fayard together with Les 13 coupables and Les 13 énigmes, these stories, with their investigative method based on observation and an understanding of human nature, anticipate the great Maigret investigations to come.

A superb copy from the deluxe issue of this rare Simenon title, the first in which he incorporated press photography into his crime fiction.