Mystery and Crime Futrelle, Jacques: The Thinking Machine Omnibus (v1) 21 Jun 2018

[Pulpmeister]

This is I believe the most complete collection of "Thinking Machine" detective cases, as I have now tracked down 50 stories, and assembled them together in a single volume of some 350,000 words.

S F X Van Dusen, "The Thinking Machine", made his debut in 1905 in "The Problem of Cell 13"; in the short period between 1905 and his death on the Titanic in 1912, Futrelle wrote many short stories and novellas for the "slick" magazines, which paid vastly better than the "penny a word" pulps.

One of his main series characters (he had several) was "The Thinking Machine". He does not seem to have written a full-length novel; the longest story i have found is not much over 40,000 words ("The High Hand", not a "Thinking Machine" story.)

In his lifetime only one volume of his stories was published: "The Thinking Machine", 1907. I have modified the cover of this volume to create the cover for the omnibus, added a bibliographic note pointing to sources, and provided a frontispiece in the form of a formal portrait of the author.

There are 50 stories in all, and I would not be surprised if more turned up in the future.

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[Greg Anos]

Thanks for the collection. I read several of the stories as a kid.

[Pulpmeister]

I have fixed the errors in the TOC and it is now V2.