The Urgent Hangman - Inscribed to Dennis Wheatley - Peter Cheyney 1938 - Collins, London - First Edition Dennis Wheatley’s copy, inscribed by Peter Cheyney ‘To my good friend Dennis’ and dated ‘14. 6. 38’. With Wheatley’s illustrated bookplate.

A near fine copy of the first ‘Slim Callaghan’ novel, in fine and thus rare dust jacket.

Cheyney’s action-filled and action filled plots ran counter to the comfortable murder mysteries of the time, and Slim Callaghan was, like his American hard-boiled cousins, cynical tough and marginally mannered.
  Reginald Southouse (Peter) Cheyney (1896-1951) was the first British writer to admit the influence of the American Hard-boiled school.

Provenance: From the library of Dennis Wheatley with his bookplate.

References: Herbert, ‘
The Oxford Companion to Crime & Mystery Writing’, 201. Reilly,’Twentieth-Century Crime and Mystery Writers’ (1980), 300.

Octavo (book size 19.8 x 13 cm), pp. 252 [4 (author promo and books)]. In publisher’s orange cloth, spine lettered and ruled in black, front board with author’s signature stamped in black. Dust jacket priced 7s. 6d. net to lower corner of front flap.
  Condition: Near fine, light foxing to edges, and to first few pages, else clean solid, in fine dust jacket   Ref: 109481   Price: HK$ 15,000