The fourth in a new series of classic detective stories from the vaults of HarperCollins involves a tragic accident during a shooting party. As the story switches between Paris and Hampshire, the possibility of it not being an accident seems to grow more likely.“The Detective Story Club”, launched by Collins in 1929, was a clearing house for the best and most ingenious crime stories of the age, chosen by a select committee of experts. Now, almost 90 years later, these books are the classics of the Golden Age, republished at last with the same popular cover designs that appealed to their original readers.The Mystery of the Skeleton Key, first published in 1919, has the distinction of being the first detective novel commissioned and published by Collins, though it was Bernard Capes’ only book in the genre, as he died shortly before it was published. This is how the Detective Club announced their edition ten years later:“Mr Arnold Bennett, in a recent article, criticised the ad hoc characterisation and human interest in the detective novels of to-day. “The Mystery of the Skeleton Key” contains, in addition to a clever crime problem and plenty of thrills, a sensible love story, humour, excellent characterisation and strong human interest. The scenes are laid in Paris and Hampshire. The story deals with a crime committed in the grounds of a country house and the subsequent efforts of a clever young detective the track down the perpetrator. The Selection Committee of “The Detective Story Club” have no hesitation in recommending this splendid thriller as one which will satisfy the most exacting reader of detective fiction.”This new edition comes with a brand new introduction by Capes expert and anthologist, Hugh Lamb.

The Mystery of the Skeleton Key (The Detective Club)

Literature & Fiction

Capes, Bernard

Genre Fiction

Collins Crime Club

The fourth in a new series of classic detective stories from the vaults of HarperCollins involves a tragic accident during a shooting party. As the story switches between Paris and Hampshire, the possibility of it not being an accident seems to grow more likely.
“The Detective Story Club”, launched by Collins in 1929, was a clearing house for the best and most ingenious crime stories of the age, chosen by a select committee of experts. Now, almost 90 years later, these books are the classics of the Golden Age, republished at last with the same popular cover designs that appealed to their original readers.
The Mystery of the Skeleton Key, first published in 1919, has the distinction of being the first detective novel commissioned and published by Collins, though it was Bernard Capes’ only book in the genre, as he died shortly before it was published. This is how the Detective Club announced their edition ten years later:
“Mr Arnold Bennett, in a recent article, criticised the ad hoc characterisation and human interest in the detective novels of to-day. “The Mystery of the Skeleton Key” contains, in addition to a clever crime problem and plenty of thrills, a sensible love story, humour, excellent characterisation and strong human interest. The scenes are laid in Paris and Hampshire. The story deals with a crime committed in the grounds of a country house and the subsequent efforts of a clever young detective the track down the perpetrator. The Selection Committee of “The Detective Story Club” have no hesitation in recommending this splendid thriller as one which will satisfy the most exacting reader of detective fiction.”
This new edition comes with a brand new introduction by Capes expert and anthologist, Hugh Lamb.

The Mystery of the Skeleton Key (Detective Club Crime Classics)

A collection of rare horror stories that will thrill fans of classic writers such as M. R. James, Bram Stoker, Edgar Allan Poe and E. F. Benson.
Bernard Capes was celebrated as one of the most prolific authors of the late Victorian period, producing dozens of short stories, articles, and more than forty novels across multiple genres, culminating in the first original crime novel published by Collins, The Skeleton Key. His greatest acclaim, however, came from penning some of the most terrifying ghost stories of the era. Yet following his death in 1918 his work all but slipped into oblivion until the 1980s, when veteran anthologist Hugh Lamb first collected Capes’s tales of terror as The Black Reaper.
Every story bears the stamp of Capes’s fertile and deeply pessimistic imagination, from werewolf priests and haunted typewriters to marble hands that come to life and plague-stricken villagers haunted by a scythe-wielding ghost. Now expanded with eleven further stories, a revised introduction and a new foreword by Capes’s grandson, Ian Burns, this classic collection will thrill horror fans and restore Capes’s reputation as one of the best writers in the horror genre.

The Black Reaper: Tales of Terror by Bernard Capes (Collins Chillers)

Harpercollins

The Skeleton Key (1919) was the first detective novel published by Collins, ushering in the Golden Age, the Crime Club, and 100 years of remarkable crime fiction that would follow. 
A body is discovered after a shooting party in the grounds of a country house in Hampshire. The police are called in, and a clever young detective, Sergeant Ridgway, begins to unravel a much more complicated and brutal case of murder than was first suspected. But has he met his match with Le Sage, a chess-playing Baron, who is convinced that the answers lie not in Hampshire but in Paris? 
After 20 years of writing in various genres, The Skeleton Key was Bernard Capes’ crowning achievement, as he died shortly after completing the book. Introduced by Hugh Lamb, whose anthology The Black Reaper resurrected Capes’ reputation as one of the best horror writers of his generation, the book also includes its original tribute to Capes by G. K. Chesterton, author of the Father Brown mysteries.

Literary

Twenty ghostly tales from the supernatural masters of the Victorian age. Wimbourne Books presents the second in a series of rare or out-of-print ghost stories from Victorian authors. With an introduction by author Alastair Gunn, Volume 2 in the series spans the years 1836 to 1899, contains ghost stories set at or around Christmas, and includes stories from a wide range of authors including Charles Dickens, Amelia B. Edwards and J. S. Le Fanu. Readers new to this genre will discover its pleasures; the Victorian quaintness, the sometimes shocking difference in social norms, the almost comical politeness and structured etiquette, the archaic and precise language, but mostly the Victorians’ skill at stoking our fears and trepidations, our insecurities and doubts. Even if you are already an aficionado of the ghostly tale there is much within these pages to interest you. Wait until the dark of the snowy night (preferably on Christmas Eve), lock the doors, shutter the windows, light the fire, sit with your back to the wall and bury yourself in the Victorian macabre. Try not to let the creaking floorboards, the distant howl of a dog, the chill breeze that caresses the candle, the shadows in the far recesses of your room, disturb your concentration. Includes the stories; A Christmas Tree (1850) – Charles Dickens; The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton (1836) – Charles Dickens; The Ghost: A Christmas Story (1856) – William D. O’Connor; The Oxford Ghost (1858) – James Hain Friswell; Maese Pérez, the Organist (1861) – Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer; The North Mail (1864) – Amelia B. Edwards; The Abbot's Ghost, or Maurice Treherne's Temptation (1867) – Louisa May Alcott; Catherine’s Quest (1868) – J. Sheridan Le Fanu; The Ghost’s Summons (1868) – Ada Buisson; At Chrighton Abbey (1871) – Mary Elizabeth Braddon; The Ghosts at Grantley (1875) – Leonard Kip; Christmas Eve on a Haunted Hulk (1889) – Frank Cowper; The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall (1891) – John Kendrick Bangs; Unexplained (1891) – Letitia McClintock; A Gruesome Joke (1891) – Elizabeth Burgoyne Corbett; The Brazen Cross (1893) – H. B. Marriott Watson; The Real and the Counterfeit (1895) – Louisa Baldwin; The Vanishing House (1898) – Bernard Capes; The Great Staircase at Landover Hall (1998) – Frank R. Stockton; Wolverden Tower (1899) – Grant Allen.

The Wimbourne Book of Victorian Ghost Stories: Volume 2

Braddon, Mary Elizabeth

Corbett, Elizabeth Burgoyne

Gunn, Alastair

Bangs, John Kendrick

Cowper, Frank

Marriott-Watson, H. B.

McClintock, Letitia

Baldwin, Louisa

Kip, Leonid

Wimbourne Books

As outspoken in his day as Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens are today, American freethinker and author ROBERT GREEN INGERSOLL (1833-1899) was a notorious radical whose uncompromising views on religion and slavery (they were bad, in his opinion), women's suffrage (a good idea, he believed), and other contentious matters of his era made him a wildly popular orator and critic of 19th-century American culture and public life. As a speaker dedicated to expanding intellectual horizons and celebrating the value of skepticism, Ingersoll spoke frequently on such topics as atheism, freedom from the pressures of conformity, and the lives of philosophers who espoused such concepts. This collection of his most famous speeches includes the lectures: [ "The Gods" (1872) [ "Humboldt" (1869) [ "Thomas Paine" (1870) [ "Individuality" (1873) [ "Heretics and Heresies" (1874)

Adventures of the Comte De La Muette During the Reign of Terror

History

BiblioLife

Adventures of the Comte de la Muette during the reign of terror

This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. This text refers to the Bibliobazaar edition.

Amaranthus

BiblioBazaar

World

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Capes, Bernard. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Capes, Bernard