Description
1933 FIRST EDITION PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES BY VINCENT STARRETT GIFT IDEA. Following that, Starrett wrote a book column, "Books Alive," for the Chicago Tribune. He retired after 25 years of the column in 1967. These references were collected and annotated by Karen Murdock and published under the title "Sherlock Alive" in 2010. From 1933, this is The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, by Vincent Starrett, as published by the Macmillan Co., New York. Sized 8x5 inches, bound in blue cloth, gilt titles. 214 pages. Illustrated with photographs. Great condition. Most copies online listed for three figures. Charles Vincent Emerson Starrett (October 26, 1886 – January 5, 1974), known as Vincent Starrett, was a Canadian-born American writer, newspaperman, and bibliophile. Biography Charles Vincent Emerson Starrett was born above his grandfather's bookshop in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. His father moved the family to Chicago in 1889 where Starrett attended John Marshall High School. Starrett landed a job as a cub reporter with the Chicago Inter-Ocean in 1905. When that paper folded two years later he began working for the Chicago Daily News as a crime reporter, a feature writer, and finally a war correspondent in Mexico from 1914 to 1915. Starrett turned to writing mystery and supernatural fiction for pulp magazines during the 1920s and 1930s. In 1920, he wrote a Sherlock Holmes pastiche entitled The Adventure of the Unique "Hamlet". Starrett on at least one occasion said that the press-run was 100 copies, but on others claimed 200; a study of surviving copies by Randall Stock documents 110. This story involved the detective investigating a missing 1602 inscribed edition of Shakespeare's play Hamlet. Starrett's most famous work, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, was published in 1933. Following that, Starrett wrote a book column, "Books Alive," for the Chicago Tribune. He retired after 25 years of the column in 1967. He often mentioned Sherlock Holmes in these columns, which appeared in the book section of the Sunday newspaper. These references were collected and annotated by Karen Murdock and published under the title "Sherlock Alive" in 2010. Starrett was one of the founders of The Hounds of the Baskerville (sic), a Chicago chapter of The Baker Street Irregulars. Starrett's horror/fantasy stories were written primarily for the pulp magazine Weird Tales, and are collected in The Quick and the Dead, (Arkham House, 1965). His story "Penelope," published in the May 1923 issue of Weird Tales, was also featured in the anthology The Moon Terror (1927) anonymously edited by Farnsworth Wright, and published by the magazine. Starrett's other writing included poetry, collected in Autolycus in Limbo, (Dutton, 1943), detective novels, such as Murder on 'B' Deck, (Doubleday, 1929, and others). He had also created his own detective character, Chicago sleuth Jimmie Lavender, whose adventures usually first appeared in the pulp magazine Short Stories. The name Jimmy Lavender (sic) was that of an actual pitcher for the Chicago Cubs; Starrett wrote to ask the ball player for permission to use his name for a gentleman detective, which the pitcher granted. The stories are collected in The Case Book of Jimmie Lavender (Gold Label, 1944).