MYSTERY HOUSE  [1940-1948]


    From the August 31, 1940, issue of Publisher’s Weekly: “Arcadia House, Inc., has announced the establishment of two new imprints, one for the publication of detective fiction and one for religious books.  Detective novels will be published under the imprint of Mystery House, with Sally Frances as editor in charge.  The following titles inaugurate the series: Clue in Two Flats, by R.L.F. McCombs, August 26th; The Corpse with the Listening Ear, by Laurence Dwight Smith, September 20th; Death in the Wheelbarrow, by Jan Gordon, October 10th; Abandon Hope, by Isabel Garland, October 22nd; Homicide Johnny, by Stephen Gould, November 12th.  Each book is priced at $2.00.”


    Alex Hillman and Samuel Curl were co-founders of  the Hillman-Curl and Arcadia House imprints in the mid-1930s.  After the partnership ended in 1939, Curl went into business for himself.  He retained the AH imprint, using it primarily for westerns and romances, and started the Mystery House line in 1940. 

    Sam Curl continued the line until early 1948, when he went bankrupt and sold Arcadia House to Nat Wartels, the owner of Phoenix Press.  In 1952 Wartels merged AH with PP and went on publishing mysteries, westerns, and romances under the Arcadia name into the 60s.  (Just why he, Wartels, chose to continue with the AH rather than PP imprint is unclear, though it may be because the books he published under the AH name had better sales.) 

    As for luckless Sam Curl, he reorganized and began publishing again in the early 50s in partnership with Thomas Bouregy under the joint name Bouregy & Curl.   Among the relatively few books brought out under this regime as Mystery House titles were those written by B. E. Lovell in 1952 and Dale Wilmer in 1954.  One more was published in 1955 and nine in 1956.  It was probably sometime in late 1956 that Curl ran out of money, sold out to Bouregy, and disappeared from the publishing scene.  The 1957-59 MH titles were all published by Thomas Bouregy & Co.






1940


ROBERT AVERY
A Murder a Day!


JOHN DONAVAN
Case of the Violet Smoke

JAN GORDON
Death in the Wheelbarrow

STEPHEN GOULD
Homicide Johnny



R. L. F. McCOMBS
Clue in Two Flats

LAURENCE DWIGHT SMITH
The Corpse with the Listening Ear








1941


ANN CARDWELL
Crazy to Kill



RUTH GILBERT COCHRANE
Victoria Pruitt Goes to Town


MICHAEL CROMBIE
The Frightened Girl

JOHN DONAVAN
The Case of the Plastic Mask


JOHN DONAVAN
Case of the Talking Dust

ISABEL GARLAND
Abandon Hope



ANTHONY GILBERT
She Vanished in the Dawn



ALBERT JEFFERS
Screen for Murder

INIGO JONES
The Albatross Murders

P. B. MAXON
The Waltz of Death



BARRY PEROWNE
Ten Words of Poison

E. BAKER QUINN
Death Is a Restless Sleeper

KELLIHER SECRIST
Murder Makes By-Lines

LAURENCE DWIGHT SMITH
Follow This Fair Corpse


KIRK WALES
Six Were to Die

   




1942

ANTHONY GILBERT
Dear Dead Woman


 BARRY PEROWNE
All Exits Blocked








1943


ROBERT AVERY
Murder on the Downbeat



JOE BARRY
The Pay-Off

JOE BARRY  
The Third Degree



PETER CHEYNEY
It Couldn’t Matter Less



AMEN DELL
Johnny on the Spot

DAYLE DOUGLAS
Haunted Harbor

ANTHONY GILBERT
The Clock in the Hatbox


KATHLEEN HEWITT
The Mice Are Not Amused

E. C. R. LORAC
Death Came Softly

MARGOT NEVILLE
Lena Hates Men








1944


WILLIAM BOGART
Murder Is Forgetful



DENISON CLIFT
The Spy in the Room

FRANK DIAMOND
Murder in Five Columns

CECIL FREEMAN GREGG
Two Died at Three


CLEMENT WOOD
Death in Ankara

CLEMENT WOOD
Death on the Pampas










1945



JOE BARRY
The Fall Guy



WILLIAM BEYER
Eenie, Meenie, Minie – Murder!


ED DOHERTY
The Corpse Who Wouldnt Die

JOHN DOW
The Little Boy Laughed

A. FIELDING
Pointer to a Crime

SYDNEY HORLER
Dark Danger

SAM MERWIN, JR.
Knife in My Back

SAM MERWIN, JR.
Message from a Corpse



GORDON MEYRICK
Body on the Pavement



JOHN NOTLEY
Murder Has an Echo







1946



JOE BARRY
The Triple Cross



WILLIAM GRAY BEYER
Death of a Puppeteer

MARIE BLIZARD
The Late Lamented Lady

WILLIAM G. BOGART
The Queen City Murder Case

SCHUYLER BROOCKS
Murder Makes a Marriage

RICHARD BURKE
The Fourth Star



DON CAMERON
Dig Another Grave

FRANK DIAMOND
Murder Rides a Rocket

SIBYL ERICSON
The Curate’s Crime



DEAN HAWKINS
Headsman’s Holiday

HELEN HOLLEY
Blood on the Beach

OWEN FOX JEROME
The Corpse Awaits

CAROLYNNE & MALCOLM LOGAN
One of These Seven


E. C. R. LORAC
Fire in the Thatch

E. C. R. LORAC
Murder by Matchlight

DAVID MANNERS
Memory of a Scream

SAM MERWIN, JR.
A Matter of Policy



M. SCOTT MICHEL
The Black Key

M. SCOTT MICHEL
The Psychiatric Murders

PETER MORTIMER
If a Body Kill a Body

CLARENCE MULLEN
Thereby Hangs a Corpse



JOHN ROEBURT
There Are Dead Men in Manhattan





1947



MARIE BLIZARD
The Men in Her Death



DON CAMERON
White for a Shroud

JOHN EVANS
If You Have Tears

HELEN HOLLEY
Dead Run

HARRISON HUNT
Murder Picks the Jury



KERMIT JAEDICKER
Tall, Dark and Dead

FRANK KANE
About Face

E. C. R. LORAC
Murderers Mistake

VICTOR PATRICK
Three to Make Murder






   1948


AMELIA REYNOLDS LONG
  It’s Death, My Darling!



FOOTNOTE:  As mentioned in the introduction at the top of this page, no further books were published under the Mystery House imprint until 1952, with one more in each of 1954 and 1955.  Nine appeared in 1956, eleven in 1957, twelve in 1958 and thirteen in 1959.

        A full listing of these additional titles appears in Murder at 3 Cents a Day.  Cover images may be added here at a later date.








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