ONE OF THE GREAT GOLDEN AGE DETECTIVES: FIRST EDITION, 1907, PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR

FUTRELLE, Jacques. The Thinking Machine. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1907. Octavo, original black cloth boards stamped in red. $3000.

First edition of the first collection of stories starring a classic detective sometimes called the American Sherlock Holmes, inscribed on the frontispiece recto by the author to the recipient of the dedication: "To John L. Eddy—in appreciation of a pleasant relationship which resulted in these stories—by the author, Jacques Futrelle / March 8, 1907."

"The purely intellectual detective—the professor with numerous scholastic degrees, who depends on scientific reasoning and rarefied logic for the answer to his problems—has become a popular figure in the fiction of crime detection. His most extravagant personification—what might almost be termed the reductio ad absurdum of this type of super-sleuth—is to be found in Jacques Futrelle's Professor Augustus S.F.X. Van Dusen, Ph.D., LL.D., F.R.S., M.D., etc." (Wright, The Great Detective Stories). Eminent crime-fiction critic Julian Symons cited Professor Van Dusen alongside Chesterton's Father Brown as "the two most successful Supermen detectives of the period" (Bloody Murder, 74), and this first collection of stories about the hyperlogical "Thinking Machine" is listed as both one of Ellery Queen's 125 most important books of detective-crime short stories and one of the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstones. The volume opens with "The Problem of Cell 13," an often-anthologized piece considered one of the classics of the genre. Followed in the same year by the first U.K. edition; illustrated with four plates by the Kinneys. Without the scarce dust jacket. Crime & Mystery: The 100 Best Books 7. Queen's Quorum 38. Inscribed to John L. Eddy, mentioned in the printed dedication alongside the author's wife ("To those two persons who made the Thinking Machine possible / J.L.E., who opened the way, and L.M.F., who guided, advised and encouraged the hand that labored, these tales are gratefully dedicated"). The dedication was additionally annotated in pencil by the author, who drew an arrow to the first initials and added "My Wife" to the second—Lily May Futrelle, herself a successful author. She survived the sinking of the Titanic when Jacques insisted she precede him onto a lifeboat while he stayed behind; he and many of his unpublished stories were lost when the ship went down.

Book in very good condition with faint toning to pages surrounding plates; minor rubbing to boards and spine. An exceptional presentation copy, items signed by Futrelle now being vanishingly scarce.