Boileau-Narcejac

A Russian Translation

May 15, 2015Archive, Book covers, San-Antonio, SeriesBoileau-Narcejac, San-Antonio, Translation, Vernon Sullivandjeannerod View all 2 comments

San-Antonio, Passez-moi la Joconde, In Detektiv Francii, 7, Moscow, Renaissance, 1993

With thanks to Didier Poiret

Passez-moi la Joconde, one of the earliest novels by San-Antonio (1954) formed part of an anthology of French Detective fiction published in Russia. The anthology contains five novels. San-Antonio’s is the last one. There is no sense of chronology, nor apparent attention paid to genre distinctions or any other criteria of classification. It would be an interesting question for a quizz to try and guess what the five (or six) French authors (see below) have in common: Boileau-Narcejac ; Didier Daeninckx; Vernon Sullivan (aka Boris Vian); Paul Andreotta; San-Antonio

Passez-moi la Joconde, one of the earliest novels by San-Antonio (1954) formed part of an anthology of French Detective fiction published in Russia. The anthology contains five novels.(1) San-Antonio’s is the last one. The collection entirely lacks a sense of chronology’, nor does there seem to have been any attention paid to genre distinctions or any other criteria of classification. It would be an interesting question for a quiz(4) to try and guess what the following five (or six) French authors (see below)(5) have in common: Boileau-Narcejac ; Didier Daeninckx; Vernon Sullivan (aka Boris Vian); Paul Andreotta; San-Antonio.

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Spanish Crime Series : GP Policíaca

April 9, 2015Archive, Book covers, Publishers, Series, TranslationAmerican novel, Boileau-Narcejac, Mika Waltari, Peter Cheyney, Vérydjeannerod One comment

The popular “The Owl” Series (Colección El buho), by the Barcelona publisher Planeta, published household names of international Crime Fiction in Spain in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Such as, for example Dashiell Hammett’s Ciudad de pesadilla (translated by César de Montserrat) in 1958 or Erle Stanley Gardner’s El caso de la lata vacía, in 1953 and El caso de la lámpara humeante, in 1957. Another famous Series dedicated to Crime Fiction in Spain at the time of the fascist dictatorship, and one of the most popular was GP Policíaca . Published by editorial Plaza & Janés, in Barcelona, it comprised some 200 novels, from 1957 to 1966. Continue reading →

The Beauty of Crime Fiction Collections

December 24, 2014CRIME VIZBoileau-Narcejac, Collections, E. Wallace, Les Chefs-d'œuvre du roman d'aventures, Librairie Gallimard, Pierre Lemaitre, Pierre Véry, Stanislas-André Steeman, William Irish, Zig Zags of TreacheryInternational Crime Fiction Research Group Leave a comment

Collection Les Chefs-d’œuvre du roman d’aventures (Librairie Gallimard, 1928- 1934)

This prestigious “collection” (Publisher Series) predates the influential Série Noire, launched after W.W.2 with the same publisher, the Librairie Gallimard in Paris. International bestsellers of the crime genre, comprising Classics of mystery and detection novel (Austin Freeman) ,thrillers (E. Wallace) and authors representative of the “golden age” of crime fiction (Van Dine) were published here together with illustrious French heirs to the 19^th Century’s Serials (Le Rouge). This is also were the first French translations of Hammett’s Glass Key and the Dain Curse were published. Continue reading →