BRAIN WAVES AND DEATH
by Rich, Willard (pseudonym of William T. Richards)
- Used
- first
- Condition
- Small address label affixed to front paste down, a fine copy in a fine dust jacket with mild shelf wear to corner tips and spine
- Seller
-
Laurel, Maryland, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1940. First edition. Small address label affixed to front paste down, a fine copy in a fine dust jacket with mild shelf wear to corner tips and spine ends. Uncommon in above average condition. (27972). Octavo, pp. [1-10] 1-244 [245-246: blank] [note: first and last leaves are blanks], original decorated green cloth, front and spine panels stamped in dark blue, top edge stained blue, fore-edge untrimmed. A scientist under observation in a sealed room is killed during an experiment in the Howard M. Ward Laboratory where a research team is studying the electroencephalograph. Shortly thereafter a second murder is committed under circumstances as puzzling as the first. The murders are solved by Inspector Noonan, a "practical" Boston detective. BRAIN-WAVES AND DEATH was published posthumously under the pseudonym "Willard Rich" a few weeks after its author, William T. Richards, took his own life. Richards worked for Alfred Lee Loomis and his novel was a thinly veiled account of a real-life laboratory located about 40 miles north of New York City nicknamed "Tuxedo Park." This "secret palace of science" was founded and funded by Loomis, arguably one of the most significant and unaccredited figures in the history of modern military science. Loomis, a world-class tinkerer in his own right, was a visionary who saw that technology would win the looming war-and indeed that an investment in "big science" would be the key to national strength in the future. Loomis went on to establish the MIT Rad Lab and later was instrumental in setting up the Manhattan Project. According to legend, Loomis had all copies of Richards' roman-a-clef bought up and destroyed. Obviously he missed a few copies, but the book is uncommon, especially in jacket. Hubin (1994), p. 678. Adey, Locked Room Murders 958.
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Details
- Bookseller
- John W. Knott, Jr., Bookseller, ABAA/ILAB (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 27972
- Title
- BRAIN WAVES AND DEATH
- Author
- Rich, Willard (pseudonym of William T. Richards)
- Book Condition
- Used - Small address label affixed to front paste down, a fine copy in a fine dust jacket with mild shelf wear to corner tips and spine
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- First edition
- Publisher
- Charles Scribner's Sons
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 1940
- Keywords
- Mystery
Terms of Sale
John W. Knott, Jr., Bookseller, ABAA/ILAB
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including original shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives mis-described or damaged.
About the Seller
John W. Knott, Jr., Bookseller, ABAA/ILAB
Biblio member since 2017
Laurel, Maryland
About John W. Knott, Jr., Bookseller, ABAA/ILAB
John W. Knott, Jr., BooksellerABAA/ILABFine First Editions
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Shelf Wear
- Shelf wear (shelfwear) describes damage caused over time to a book by placing and removing a book from a shelf. This damage is...
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
- Fine
- A book in fine condition exhibits no flaws. A fine condition book closely approaches As New condition, but may lack the...
- Octavo
- Another of the terms referring to page or book size, octavo refers to a standard printer's sheet folded four times, producing...
- Cloth
- "Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Leaves
- Very generally, "leaves" refers to the pages of a book, as in the common phrase, "loose-leaf pages." A leaf is a single sheet...
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...