Fiction House Press - Earl Derr Biggers

EARL DERR BIGGERS
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Earl Derr Biggers (1884-1933) was an American novelist and playwright. He is remembered primarily for adaptations of his novels, especially those featuring the Chinese-American detective Charlie Chan. Many of his plays and novels were made into movies. His novel Seven Keys to Baldpate led to seven films of the same title and at least two with other titles but essentially equivalent plots. George M. Cohan (better known as a songwriter, and vaudeville and Broadway song-and-dance man) adapted the novel as a stage play.

THE AGONY COLUMN
A murder mystery by the creator of Charlie Chan! A young man, in love with a stranger girl, corresponds with her via a lovelorn column in the local paper. While reading other people's contributions to the column, he discovers that a murder is being planned. He follows the correspondance through the actual commission of the crime. Illustrated.

This updated edition is a facsimile of the first edition from The Bobbs Merrill Company in 1916.

Hardcover w/dust jacket:
6 x 9 inch
218 pages
$27.95

Trade Paperback:
6 x 9 inch
218 pages
$15.00

E-Book

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CHARLIE CHAN #1: THE HOUSE WITHOUT A KEY

ONE BROOCH, A PAGE FROM A GUEST BOOK--

one cigarette stub of a certain kind, an illuminated wrist-watch with the figure two effaced.

That's what they had to go on after they found old Dan Winterslip had been murdered. Old Dan was an ungodly cuss, but he had bought respectability with riches, and he had a way about him. Handsome and genial, his living presence kept the stories of his past down. Dead, they swarmed, like the wings of preying birds, with the lurid details of his old sailing days when the gold stuff was just coming in.

The most famous of fiction detectives--the lovable Charlie Chan--with his charm, his broken English, his Chinese philosophy, and his ability to use his head, ran these few scattered clues right down to the man who slipped on that moonless night into the house without a key.

This is a corking murder story--one of the most perplexing and fascinating of the inimitable Charlie Chan cases.

Trade Paperback:
6 x 9 inch
376 pages
$15.95
ISBN 978-1647203740

CHARLIE CHAN #2: THE CHINESE PARROT

Here is the most famous of fiction detectives--Charlie Chan--on one of his toughest cases. And here is the chilling adventure, the perplexing mystery--and the amusing humor and likeable characters that mean Earl Derr Biggers at his best.

Charlie Chan's duty was merely to deliver the magnificent Jordan pearls to their new owner, P. J. Madden, the great financier. But when he arrived at the lonely ranch--and the parrot cried, "Help! Murder! Put Down that Gun!"--and a newly made bullet hole was found beneath a picture--he decided to stay on and investigate. There were many more sinister, unexpected, and dangerous happenings before Charlie was able to unravel the threads of crime, violence and murder.

Trade Paperback:
6 x 9 inch
364 pages
$15.95
ISBN 978-1647204433

CHARLIE CHAN #3: BEHIND THAT CURTAIN

Behind that Curtain lies--what?

Charlie Chan's greatest case and Earl Derr Biggers' most exciting story. You know Charlie Chan, the Honolulu detective, whose popularity has grown--as Charlie himself would put it--with unbearable force.

In Behind that Curtain the murder in San Francisco of Sir Frederic Bruce, former head of Scotland Yard, is the center of the plot. Before the motives back of that mysterious deed are laid bare, there develops a romance of three continents. "There are more women in it than in the Follies," complains Captain Flannery of the San Francisco police; and one of them evoked an extraordinary gallantry, devotion and sacrifice.

Trade Paperback:
6 x 9 inch
350 pages
$19.95

Book 1: EARL DERR BIGGERS TELLS TEN STORIES
FIRST EDITION: Earl Derr Biggers tells ten of his stories in this new collection featuring "Love in Hollywood", "Milly", "On Behalf of the Boobs", "The Ebony Stick", "The Duel", "Bread Cast Upon the Waters", "The Honor of the Bluebottles", "The Deuce of Hearts", "A Lost Quixote", and "The Apron of Genius".

The softcover edition contains a frontispiece, the hardcover edition contains a frontispiece and 55 interior illustrations.

Hardcover w/dust jacket:
6 x 9 inch
360 pages
$29.95
ISBN 978-1312269866

Trade Paperback:
6 x 9 inch
308 pages $15.00
ISBN 978-1987069259

E-Book

For an Epub, Click Here

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Book 2: EARL DERR BIGGERS TELLS FIFTEEN STORIES
FIRST EDITION: Earl Derr Biggers, the creator of Charlie Chan, tells fifteen of his stories in this new collection featuring "Five O'Clock Junction", "Reformers Three", "Trouble on the Wires", "Meet the Wife", "Saved by Proxy", "A Transaction in Sewing Machines", "Spats McCann", "The Stain-Glassed Window", "There's Many a Slip", "Forty-Seven Girls and Sally", "Soap and Sophocles", "Prisoners in Paradise", "A Big Day for Bill", "Nothing to do Till To-morrow", and "Out of the Dark".

The softcover edition contains a frontispiece, the hardcover edition contains a frontispiece and 34 interior illustrations.

Hardcover w/dust jacket:
6 x 9 inch
318 pages
$29.95
ISBN 978-168101452

Trade Paperback:
6 x 9 inch
304 pages
ISBN 978-0615964249

Book 3: EARL DERR BIGGERS TELLS TWENTY-THREE STORIES
FIRST EDITION: Earl Derr Biggers, the creator of Charlie Chan, tells twenty-three of his stories in this new collection featuring "The Prodigal Father", "Conceit", "The Cruise of the 'Scholarship'", "A Game For Two", "A Freshman's Letter Home", "Mr. Dooley Discusses Athletics", "Mr. Dooley on Kipling", "The Harvard Man in Fiction", "The Crimesown", "The Drama and the Trust", "The Christmas Story", "A Book Review", "The Ancient Bargain", "Our Salvation", "Everyman His Own Playwright", "'X' Goes Off to School", "Over Here", "Tales of a City That Was", "Going 'Down Street'", "The Money Mirage", "O'Grady of the Buttons", "The Last Leaf", and "John Henry and the Restless Sex".

The softcover edition contains a frontispiece, the hardcover edition contains a frontispiece and 10 interior illustrations.

Hardcover w/dust jacket:
6 x 9 inch
316 pages
$29.95
Trade Paperback:
6 x 9 inch
304 pages
$15.00
ISBN 978-1987069266

Book 4: EARL DERR BIGGERS TELLS SIX STORIES
Earl Derr Biggers, the creator of Charlie Chan, tells six of his stories in this new collection featuring "Selling Miss Minerva", "The Girl Who Paid Dividends", "Idle Hands", "A Letter to Australia", "Trouping With Ellen", and "Broadway Broke".

The softcover edition contains a frontispiece, the hardcover edition contains a frontispiece and 16 interior illustrations.

Hardcover w/dust jacket:
6 x 9 inch
336 pages
$29.95
Trade Paperback:
6 x 9 inch
304 pages
$15.00
ISBN 978-0615986555

FIFTY CANDLES
A murder mystery by the creator of Charlie Chan! From the Saturday Evening Post, set in Hawaii, China, and San Francisco, a murder is committed and the only clue is a birthday cake with 50 candles. Illustrated.

Hardcover w/dust jacket:
6 x 9 inch
158 pages
$24.95

Trade Paperback:
6 x 9 inch
158 pages
$15.00

INSIDE THE LINES
INSIDE THE LINES--from Berlin to London to Paris to Alexandria to Gibralter--in a net work of lines criss-crossing through Europe--the fascinating game of the secret service is played. It is a game in which death lurks in every move, over a game of cards, in the flick of an eyelid.

In the electric days at the outbreak of the war Captain Woodhouse of the British Signal Service was playing a dangerous battle of wits against the Wilhelmstrasse, the headquarters of that octopus stretching its tentacles over the world--the German spy system. This is the story of how the captain brilliantly and dramatically outwitted a plan to put Gibralter into the hands of German spies.

It is also the story of Louisa--a spy with the face of a fine animal and a heart of cole amethyst; and of Jane Gerson, pretty buyer of dresses from Hildebrand's, New York, who found herself alone in the face of Europe's buring, and also of Billy Cappter, a catspaw and a target.

A photographic facsimile of the first edition.

Trade Paperback:
6 x 9 inch
354 pages
$16.95

LOVE INSURANCE
A romantic comedy about a man who asks a woman to marry him. She accepts. He then takes out a love insurance policy in case she backs out of the wedding--he would be paid the amount on the policy. The young man who wrote the policy falls in love with the engaged woman.

A photographic reproduction of the First Edition book.

Trade Paperback:
6 x 9 inch
428 pages
$18.95
ISBN 978-1987097993

SEVEN KEYS TO BALDPATE
Baldpate Inn has seven keys. The novelist has one key. The other six fall into the hands of six apparent lunatics--(1) a hermit who flees from barbers and women has a key (2) a peroxide blonde who "just loves" men has a key (3) a college professor who has been laughed out of his job has a key (4) a political "boss" who eats cigars alive and he has a key (5) a Belle of High Societee has a key (6) a bold, bad clubman who has a key and--The Girl. She (bless her) hasn't a key, you notice, but she provides one--to the mystery that Baldpate Inn immediately becomes soaked in.

A photographic reproduction of the First Edition book.

Hardcover w/dust jacket:
6 x 9 inch
428 pages
$29.95
ISBN 978-1987075144

Trade Paperback:
6 x 9 inch
428 pages
$18.95
ISBN 978-1987075137