

Sax Rohmer, El Diabolico Doctor (Biblioteca Oro, 35, 1935)
It was not long before a Spanish publisher introduced the 1920’s fashion of Yellow Crime Fiction booklets to Spain. Only a few years after Mondadori in Italy, the Barcelona publisher Molino proposed in 1933 (the year of the publishing house’s creation), a series of Crime Fiction pulps with yellow covers in its series Biblioteca Oro. Like the Italian series, this Spanish counterpart would become a landmark series, publishing the most representative authors in the genre. The books were on average some 100 pages long and cost 0,90 cts.
The first period of the series starts in 1933 and finishes in 1936, the year of the civil war. In its original period, the series published 25 authors, accounting for 68 books (see list below). The authors who saw the most of their books translated in the series were Oppenheim (8), Martyn (7), Christie (6) and Van Dine (5). Christie published there in that period the following books, whose translated title remain close to the original (this was not always the case in French) as can be see here : Continue reading
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Edgar Allan POE (1809-1849) The Murders in the Rue Morgue (Graham’s Magazine, Philadelphia, 1841)
Total of 13,724 words and 2,847 unique words. Most frequent words in the corpus: voice (42), said (35), Dupin(27), house (26), head (24).
Emile GABORIAU (1836-1873) L’Affaire Lerouge (Le Pays, 1863; Paris, Dentu, 1866; The Widow Lerouge, 1873)
Total of 123,867 words and 8,792 unique words. Most frequent words in the corpus: said (450), old (443), Sir(351), Noel (311), man (288).
Emile GABORIAU (1836-1873) Le Crime d’Orcival (1867), The Mystery of Orcival
Total of 103,639 words and 8,452 unique words. Most frequent words in the corpus: said (532), Lecoq (322), Plantat (307), man (252), know (230) Continue reading
by Gilbert Keith Chesterton
In attempting to reach the genuine psychological reason for the popularity of detective stories, it is necessary to rid ourselves of many mere phrases. It is not true, for example, that the populace prefer bad literature to good, and accept detective stories because they are bad literature. The mere absence of artistic subtlety does not make a book popular. Bradshaw’s Railway Guide contains few gleams of psychological comedy, yet it is not read aloud uproariously on winter evenings. If detective stories are read with more exuberance than railway guides, it is certainly because they are more artistic. Continue reading