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 Wouldn’t
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
Murderer’s
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.
MYSTERY HOUSE [1940-1948]
