ABSTRACT

The springboard-style issue of a wave of reading matter like ‘Routledge’s Detective Books’ represented an extension of the carryover impulse that was one of the key driving forces of series publishing. Routledge’s launch of a subsidiary series consisting entirely of crime narratives represented a logical progression from the course plotted with the precursor venture. The ‘Detective Books’ broke new ground on several fronts with their editions of Emile Gaboriau. Routledge’s tag struck a decidedly forward-looking note in citing a variety of writing that was taking shape in the 1880s. Acquire the books at the railway bookstall and continue to enjoy at one’s destination. There was a markedly pre-existing transnational character to the parent list with the presence of a significant number of titles by French writers like Alexandre Dumas, Eugene Sue, and Victor Hugo and American authors like Mark Twain and James Fenimore Cooper.