In 2014, Otto Penzler published Bibliomysteries: An Annotated Bibliography of First Editions of Mystery Fiction Set in the World of Books, 1849-2000. It's a useful book when one is hungry to read a bibliomystery, for the entries often give a sentence or two about the relevant book or story to whet one's appetite. Thus, recently, I found this entry:
Frederick Irving Anderson's short story "The Jorgenson Plates" sounded intriguing. The idea of "a publishing story with much about the technical aspects of publishing in England and America" is odd enough to attract my interest. Anderson's book, The Notorious Sophie Lang (1925), is particularly rare, so I looked for the reprint of the story that Penzler cites in Ellery Queen's anthology, The Female of the Species (1943). And I read it. And it has nothing whatsoever to do with publishing in either England or America. Instead it is a convoluted tale of coincidences and revelations about Sophie Lang, the female jewel thief. It was really a waste of time.
But where, then, might I find the story that I wanted to read? It doesn't appear to be in Anderson's collection, The Notorious Sophie Lang, and if it's a stray annotation by Penzler inserted into the wrong entry, it could go almost anywhere. Any suggestions?
I've read "The Jorgensen Plate" too, and as I recall it has to do with Sophie pretending to be a maid at a country house. I've never run across an affordable copy of "The Notorious Sophie Lang" or Andersen's other scarce collection, "The Infallible Godahl," but I wonder if the publishing plot could be one of Godahl's adventures. Some years ago, Otto did a piece for The Armchair Detective on those two Andersen books, which I must have read because they spurred my interest in them, but it's possible that that article carries a bit more information about the various stories. As you know, Otto sold his mystery library--except for the reference books and his Raffles collection--a few years ago, so I don't think he can correct his misattribution at this point. But it might be worth dropping a line to him at the Mysterious Bookshop.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Michael. I've followed-up on your comments with a bit of digging. One of Penzler's articles is "Collecting Mystery Fiction: Frederick Irving Anderson" from the Spring 1986 issue of The Armchair Detective. It is only two pages (including a short bibliography), and gives a good overview of Anderson three volumes of stories, but does not illuminate the present problem. I observe that Penzler also reprinted "The Jorgenson Plates" as the opening story in his Golden Age Bibliomysteries (2023), but Penzler's brief headnote goes on more about the Sophie Lang films of the 1930s than about Anderson's stories. A review of Golden Age Bibliomysteries at https://crossexaminingcrime.com/2024/09/30/golden-age-bibliomysteries-2023-ed-by-otto-penzler/ notes: "I am baffled as to why this story is considered a bibliomystery, since it does not seem to fulfil the criteria set out in the introduction. Personally, I don’t think it should have been included in the collection." I agree with this. I thought Penzler had retired some years ago, at least with the sale of his collection. I was less than impressed with "The Jorgenson Plates" as a story and don't feel like exploring Anderson's oeuvre much further. Still, there isn't a mention of a book in the story, so one wonders how anyone might consider it a bibliomystery.
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