 French publisher Editions Ferenczi had a Verrou unique way of doing things. 
Collection le Verrou (The Lock Collection) consisted of 205 pocket-sized crime novels published in France by Editions Ferenczi from 1950 to 1959. Some were written by French authors using pseudonyms that sounded English or American, while other writers used their real names, such as Alexandra Pecker (yes, that's a real name) and René Poupon (idem). Other books were written by U.S. or British writers and had been previously published. For instance, above you see Le singe de cuivre by Harry Whittington, which you might know as The Brass Monkey, and below you'll find entries from Lawrence Blochman and English scribe Peter Cheney, better known as Peter Cheyney. The art on these books is generally quite colorful. The cover above was painted by Michel Gourdon, and below you'll find another piece from him, many efforts from Georges Sogny, and a couple from as-yet-unknowns. We really like Ferenczi's output, so expect us to share more covers from this publisher later.              
 My goodness, your playing dead has gotten so, um, convincing. 
On a tué Déjanire, for which see this interesting cover above, was written for Editions Ferenczi by Ange Arbos, aka Adrien Sobra, aka Marc Agapit in 1952. Arbos was born in 1897 and wrote scores of books, as well as many short stories, the latter notably for Mystère Magazine, which was the French version of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Arbos’ fiction was pretty dark, ranging from the Hitchcockian suspense to pure horror and fantasy. We’ll get back to him later. Today we just wanted to show you the art, which gave us a laugh. But then again, it would. We’re cat people.
 To make a long story short.   
During our Paris trip a while back we found this trio of roman-policiers from Editions Ferenczi, 1952, and Editions J. Ferenczi & Fils, 1947, and after some hard bargaining snatched them up for six euros. J. Ferenczi was Hungarian-born Joseph Ferenczi, one of the main guys in Parisian pulp publishing during the first half of the twentieth century. These three booklets were written by Jean Voussag (Le diamant de Valparaiso), Paul Tossel (Trafic en orient), and Jean Dryer (Le mystérieux T… i…), and they run thirty-two pages, just about the right amount of time for a commute via train or metro. Too bad this concept has died—we’d certainly buy a cheap mini-book for a bus ride or short plane flight. Considering how traditional publishing has fallen on hard times, you think they’d explore the possibility that this market still exists. Anyway, you’ll be seeing more French pulp from us soon. Our plan is to empty our French shelf in the next couple of months and tote all this stuff back to the original booksellers to trade. Will they actually take it back? Who knows? But any excuse to go to Paris in the spring is a good one.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1937—Chamberlain Becomes Prime Minister
Arthur Neville Chamberlain, who is known today mainly for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938 which conceded the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany and was supposed to appease Adolf Hitler's imperial ambitions, becomes prime minister of Great Britain. At the time Chamberlain is the second oldest man, at age sixty-eight, to ascend to the office. Three years later he would give way to Winston Churchill. 1930—Chrysler Building Opens
In New York City, after a mere eighteen months of construction, the Chrysler Building opens to the public. At 1,046 feet, 319 meters, it is the tallest building in the world at the time, but more significantly, William Van Alen's design is a landmark in art deco that is celebrated to this day as an example of skyscraper architecture at its most elegant. 1969—Jeffrey Hunter Dies
American actor Jeffrey Hunter dies of a cerebral hemorrhage after falling down a flight of stairs and sustaining a skull fracture, a mishap precipitated by his suffering a stroke seconds earlier. Hunter played many roles, including Jesus in the 1961 film King of Kings, but is perhaps best known for portraying Captain Christopher Pike in the original Star Trek pilot episode "The Cage".
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