Earl Derr Biggers

The House Without A Key is the first of the Charlie Chan mysteries. Atmospheric and entertaining, Biggers shows you a side of Hawaii that few will ever see. John Quincy Winterslip travels from Boston to convince his aunt Minerva to end her extended vacation and come home. Nothing in his upper-class background could have prepared him for what he finds in Hawaii. Despite being engaged, Winterslip falls under the spell of the islands and meets an attractive young woman with whom he quickly falls in love. Almost immediately, he finds himself embroiled in a murder mystery. Nothing about his life will ever be the same.

Reproduction of the original: Love Insurance by Earl Derr Biggers

Biggers had always been interested in mystery fiction, but his interest in Hawaii clearly stems from a 1919 vacation in Honolulu. While there, he read a newspaper article on a Chinese detective named Chang Apana. Apana would become the model for Charlie Chan in Biggers' 1925 novel, House Without a Key, and there quickly followed five more Charlie Chan novels. Fifty Candles -- published just two years after that 1919 vacation -- shows how Hawaii, China, and murder had already begun to come together in Biggers' imagination. The story starts in a courthouse in Honolulu, moves to China, then to fog-shrouded San Francisco. Many of the elements used in the Charlie Chan series are present: Chinese characters (both sinister and sympathetic), the Honolulu legal system, a shrewd detective (in this case, lawyer Mark Drew rather than a policemen), and a baffling murder complete with red herrings and plenty of suspects. Though Fifty Candles is a murder mystery, it is also a romance, with the romantic elements at times in the forefront. Mostly, though, it is a book that will delight Biggers' many fans as they trace the origins of Charlie Chan. This volume includes an introduction by John Gregory Betancourt and a bonus short story, "The Way to the Island."

Reproduction of the original: Seven Keys to Baldpate by Earl Derr Biggers

Reproduction of the original: Seven Keys To Baldpate by Earl Derr Biggers

This book is a result of an effort made by us towards making a contribution to the preservation and repair of original classic literature. In an attempt to preserve, improve and recreate the original content, we have worked towards: 1. Type-setting & Reformatting: The complete work has been re-designed via professional layout, formatting and type-setting tools to re-create the same edition with rich typography, graphics, high quality images, and table elements, giving our readers the feel of holding a 'fresh and newly' reprinted and/or revised edition, as opposed to other scanned & printed (Optical Character Recognition - OCR) reproductions. 2. Correction of imperfections: As the work was re-created from the scratch, therefore, it was vetted to rectify certain conventional norms with regard to typographical mistakes, hyphenations, punctuations, blurred images, missing content/pages, and/or other related subject matters, upon our consideration. Every attempt was made to rectify the imperfections related to omitted constructs in the original edition via other references. However, a few of such imperfections which could not be rectified due to intentional\unintentional omission of content in the original edition, were inherited and preserved from the original work to maintain the authenticity and construct, relevant to the work. We believe that this work holds historical, cultural and/or intellectual importance in the literary works community, therefore despite the oddities, we accounted the work for print as a part of our continuing effort towards preservation of literary work and our contribution towards the development of the society as a whole, driven by our beliefs. We are grateful to our readers for putting their faith in us and accepting our imperfections with regard to preservation of the historical content. HAPPY READING

The House Without a Key is a novel that was written in 1925 by Earl Derr Biggers. It is the first of the Charlie Chan mysteries written by Biggers. The novel is remarkable in two respects. First, although Chan is ostensibly the detective, his role in the book is fairly small. He does figure out the solution to the case, but it is at the same time as Winterslip, and it is the Bostonian who has the honor of collaring the murderer. Second, the novel's portrayal of the Chinese, specifically Charlie Chan, is forward-looking for its era. The Bostonians find it hard to accept a Chinese detective on the case, but the locals know him by reputation and show him respect. While, some of the descriptions evince some of the stereotypes of the day, Chan is portrayed sympathetically, as an equal to the whites that surround him. (Indeed, Charlie Chan's superior, a white Captain of Detectives, puts him on the case and trusts him completely.)

The House Without a Key is a novel that was written in 1925 by Earl Derr Biggers. It is the first of the Charlie Chan mysteries written by Biggers. The novel is remarkable in two respects. First, although Chan is ostensibly the detective, his role in the book is fairly small. He does figure out the solution to the case, but it is at the same time as Winterslip, and it is the Bostonian who has the honor of collaring the murderer. Second, the novel's portrayal of the Chinese, specifically Charlie Chan, is forward-looking for its era. The Bostonians find it hard to accept a Chinese detective on the case, but the locals know him by reputation and show him respect. While, some of the descriptions evince some of the stereotypes of the day, Chan is portrayed sympathetically, as an equal to the whites that surround him. (Indeed, Charlie Chan's superior, a white Captain of Detectives, puts him on the case and trusts him completely.)