Rare and First Edition Books from Buckingham Books

Dealer in Rare and First-Edition Books:  Western Americana; Mystery, Detective, and Espionage Fiction

Five In A Row Signed By Chester Himes: For Love Of Imabelle, Real Cool Killers, The Crazy Kill, The Big Gold Dream, All Shot Up CHESTER HIMES

Five In A Row Signed By Chester Himes: For Love Of Imabelle, Real Cool Killers, The Crazy Kill, The Big Gold Dream, All Shot Up

CHESTER HIMES

Other works by CHESTER HIMES

Publication: Avon & Gold Medal, 1957-1960, Greenwich & New York

First editions in English (preceded only by editions in French), of the first 5 novels in Himes’ series of Harlem crime stories starring his gritty and wily police detectives Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson. All are in original wrappers (preceding the hardbound editions). Paper toned to light tan in 3 else all are nearly fine. All 5 are signed in ink (4 are also inscribed). All are plenty scarce. Sharp copies. Chester Himes was angry about the racism he saw in college, got expelled, then busted, and then imprisoned, and while there began to write about black protagonists doomed by white racism and self hate. He was ignored at home but admired overseas, so in the mid– 1950s he self–exiled to France. Marcel Duhamel, a French actor who used his money to found the Série Noir Publishing imprint, met Himes, intuited that he was writing the wrong plotlines, and handed him a $1,000 advance for a detective novel. Himes had read Dashiell Hammett while in prison, so it only took him 1 false start, (Spanish Grin, unpublished) to learn how not to write the genre. Hearing about a con called “the blow” he used it as the heart of a new novel (For Love of Imabelle) introducing Jones and Johnson, his so suave, post–Chandler, hard–boiled detectives, always involved, but never attached. In the first novel they are on the edges of the story. By the second they are the core. For Love of Imabelle won the 1958 Grand Prix for best detective novel (filmed as A Rage in Harlem), initiated 7 sequels, brought Himes international acclaim, and all the money he needed, and are today his legacy, a unique one in all of detective fiction. A scarce group of hard-boiled mystery tales from a master of the genre.

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