Day: March 15, 2015

Visualising a collection of 2075 books : The “Spécial-Police” authors

March 15, 2015AHRC, Big Data, Bilipo, Data Visualisation, DatabaseArnaud, Faller, Lay, Malet, Randa, Rank, Ropp, Saint Moore, Vilarddjeannerod Leave a comment

(click to enlarge)

The picture above is based on the total of books published by each of the authors who contributed to the legendary “Spécial Police” Series. Launched in 1949 it helped turning its publishing house, Fleuve Noir, into France’s most successful popular literature publisher. When it stopped, in 1987 it had published generations of new authors. The biggest names on the words representation above are the biggest contributors. Georges J. Arnaud, Mario Ropp (aka Maïa Devillers), Peter Randa (aka André Duquesne), Adam Saint Moore (aka Jacques Douyau) and of course San-Antonio (aka Frédéric Dard) feature here prominently. But many important names in the history of French Noir, as well as those of well-liked, prolific authors can be found here too. André Helena, Léo Malet, Serge Laforest, Jean Mazarin, Roger Vilard, M.G. Braun (aka Maurice-Gabriel Brault), André Lay and many more.

Viz the Big House Mystery

March 15, 2015CRIME VIZ, Data VisualisationAckroyd, Christiedjeannerod Leave a comment

This words-Viz is based on the titles of the first books published in France, in the Series “Le Masque”, from 1927. Most books were translated from the English language, as the publisher claimed (somewhat disingenuously), that there were not enough Crime Fiction Writers in France at the time. Continue reading →

The Collins Crime Club : Authors and Titles

March 15, 2015AHRC, Database, Detective storyAgatha Christie, Collins Crime Club, Ngaio Marsh.djeannerod Leave a comment

Having published 2 025 novels of Crime Fiction over a period spanning seven decades, between 1930 and 1994, The Collins Crime Club is another of the longest Crime Series worldwide. An imprint of William Collins & Co, it published almost the entire work of British women authors Agatha Christie (from 1926 and Murder in the Vicarage) and Ngaio Marsh (pictured)

82 authors contributed to the Collins Crime Club Series. The most frequently published were Gilbert (55 books), Lorac (52) Christie, (48) Farjeon (36) and Rhode (32). Books selected to be included in the Collins Crime Club Series certainly deserve to be described as murder mysteries. As the following visualization, based on the titles suggests it :

Murder features prominently among the hundreds of titles published by Collins Crime Club of the decades : see for example some of the novels by the prolific Anthony Abbott (aka Fulton Oursler (1893–1952), author of The Greatest Story Ever Told), in his Thatcher Colt Series : The Murder of Geraldine Foster, Collins Crime Club, 1931; The Murder of the Night Club Lady, Collins Crime Club, 1931; The Murder of the Circus Queen, Collins Crime Club, 1932; Murder of a Startled Lady, Collins Crime Club, 1937; Murder of a Man Afraid of Women, Collins Crime Club,1937; Murder at Buzzards Bay, Collins Crime Club, 1940.