My Friend Maigret -
Georges Simenon, Translated from the French by Nigel Ryan
1956 - Hamish Hamilton, London - First Edition in English
A classic Maigret murder mystery set on a small Mediterranean island off the Côte d'Azure, amongst it’s isolated eccentric community, which Maigret solves with the help of his irritating Scotland Yard colleague, Inspector Pyke.
‘If Agatha Christie holds the title of Queen of Crime, its male counterpart belongs indisputably to Georges Simenon’ - Helen MacLeod, BMC.
‘Georges Simenon (1903-89), one of the true giants of the novel, has earned through the fecundity of his imagination and his devotion to his craft the right to be termed a genius. Apparently equally indifferent to critical scorn or praise, impervious to the shifting currents of literary fashion, disdainful of pretentious philosophising or didacticism, Simenon has resolutely gone his own way, followed his unique vision, creating a body of work with the power and inevitability of life itself.
Like Balzac or Dickens or Faulkner, he has staked out his own bleak territory of the human heart, a world of passion and violence, suffering and disorder, over which broods the massive presence of his detective, Jules Maigret. One of the most important novelists of his time, and certainly one of the major writers of detective fiction; his detective stories belong among the finest examples of the genre and, like other great detective stories, deserve serious critical study.’ - Reilly, Twentieth-Century Crime and Mystery Writers.
‘Simenon’s own wit, suavity, and mastery of style are beyond question’ - Miriam Allen deFord.
‘One of the few really distinctive and original detective creations of recent years’ - Haycraft, Murder for Pleasure (1941).
‘Maigret ‘really is the stories, in a way that is not true of any other detective’. - Symons, Bloody Murder.
References: Herbert, Oxford Companion to Crime & Mystery Writing, 276, 415. Haycraft, Murder for Pleasure, 108. Symons, Bloody Murder, 143. Reilly,Twentieth-Century Crime and Mystery Writers (1980), 1548. Haining, The Classic Era of Crime Fiction (2002), 167. Steinbrunner and Penzler, Ency.of Mystery & Detection (1976), 363-5.
First published in French as ‘Mon Ami Maigret’ in 1949, and in the USA in 1957 as ‘The Methods of Maigret’ by Harcourt Brace & Co.
Octavo (binding size 19.5x13cm), pp. 159 [1]. Elegantly bound in three-quarter burgundy calf over matching cloth, spine with raised bands and gilt lettering, original cloth spine bound in at rear. Condition: Near fine, toning to outer edges, in fine binding. Ref: 112062 Price: HK$ 3,000
‘Georges Simenon (1903-89), one of the true giants of the novel, has earned through the fecundity of his imagination and his devotion to his craft the right to be termed a genius. Apparently equally indifferent to critical scorn or praise, impervious to the shifting currents of literary fashion, disdainful of pretentious philosophising or didacticism, Simenon has resolutely gone his own way, followed his unique vision, creating a body of work with the power and inevitability of life itself.
Like Balzac or Dickens or Faulkner, he has staked out his own bleak territory of the human heart, a world of passion and violence, suffering and disorder, over which broods the massive presence of his detective, Jules Maigret. One of the most important novelists of his time, and certainly one of the major writers of detective fiction; his detective stories belong among the finest examples of the genre and, like other great detective stories, deserve serious critical study.’ - Reilly, Twentieth-Century Crime and Mystery Writers.
‘Simenon’s own wit, suavity, and mastery of style are beyond question’ - Miriam Allen deFord.
‘One of the few really distinctive and original detective creations of recent years’ - Haycraft, Murder for Pleasure (1941).
‘Maigret ‘really is the stories, in a way that is not true of any other detective’. - Symons, Bloody Murder.
References: Herbert, Oxford Companion to Crime & Mystery Writing, 276, 415. Haycraft, Murder for Pleasure, 108. Symons, Bloody Murder, 143. Reilly,Twentieth-Century Crime and Mystery Writers (1980), 1548. Haining, The Classic Era of Crime Fiction (2002), 167. Steinbrunner and Penzler, Ency.of Mystery & Detection (1976), 363-5.
First published in French as ‘Mon Ami Maigret’ in 1949, and in the USA in 1957 as ‘The Methods of Maigret’ by Harcourt Brace & Co.
Octavo (binding size 19.5x13cm), pp. 159 [1]. Elegantly bound in three-quarter burgundy calf over matching cloth, spine with raised bands and gilt lettering, original cloth spine bound in at rear. Condition: Near fine, toning to outer edges, in fine binding. Ref: 112062 Price: HK$ 3,000