Recollection of A Detective Police-Officer by "Waters".

London: J&C Brown & Co.. n.d. [1856].

8vo. 158x95mm. pp. pp. iv, [2], 9-309 [1bl]. Frontispiece (some offsetting from frontispiece onto the title page opposite). This copy is undated but has the same title and imprint as the dated first edition of 1856 so we have assumed that it is from that year. Russell's works were often republished but with different titles which is not the case here.
Bound with (and after) BELL, Robert The Ladder of Gold. An English Story London:G. Routledge & Co. 1858. vi, 7-440. Navy blue half calf, marbled paper covered boards, spine decorated in blind and with two tan morocco labels lettered in gilt. Rubbing to edges and slight bumping and creasing to corners. All edges marbled. Front pastedown has Ex Libris of C. Villiers Downes. Apsley House, Beds.
Robert Bell (1800-67) was a prolific man of letters best known for his journalism and his (never completed) annotated edition of the English poets. The Ladder of Gold was one of two novels.
But, of the two works bound together here, it is the second which is of greater interest (hence our cataloguing it as the principal work). William Russell (1806-1876) was one of the first writers to concentrate on detective stories, in particular police memoirs. He began by contributing stories to magazines ten of which were published in pirated form in America in 1852 and 1853. These (together with another two) were then published (legitimately) in England in 1856. This is the present collection. The stories are short, punchy realistic and would have seemed quite revolutionary at the time. Indeed, he is sometimes cited as an influence on the grittier American twentieth century crime writers.