The Patience of Maigret -
Georges Simenon, Translated from the French by Geoffrey Sainsbury
1939 - George Routledge and Sons Ltd., London - First Edition in English
A desirable pre-war Maigret, containing the two stories ‘A Battle of Nerves’ and ‘A Face for a Clue’.
‘A Battle of Nerves’ was the basis for the classic 1949 film noir ‘The Man on the Eiffel Tower’ which starred Charles Laughton. ‘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 tothe 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.
Published the following year in the US by Harcourt Brace & Co.
Thick octavo (binding size 18x13cm), pp. [2] vi [2] 320 [2]. Elegantly bound in three-quarter navy calf over matching cloth, spine with raised bands and gilt lettering. Condition: Near fine, a few light marks to edges and one or two pages, generally clean throughout, in fine binding. Ref: 112061 Price: HK$ 3,800
‘A Battle of Nerves’ was the basis for the classic 1949 film noir ‘The Man on the Eiffel Tower’ which starred Charles Laughton. ‘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 tothe 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.
Published the following year in the US by Harcourt Brace & Co.
Thick octavo (binding size 18x13cm), pp. [2] vi [2] 320 [2]. Elegantly bound in three-quarter navy calf over matching cloth, spine with raised bands and gilt lettering. Condition: Near fine, a few light marks to edges and one or two pages, generally clean throughout, in fine binding. Ref: 112061 Price: HK$ 3,800