This volume contains 12 books by Israel Zangwill, the British author at the forefront of cultural Zionism during the 19th century. This volume contains ten novels and novelettes, including the famous The Big Bow Mystery, the first locked room mystery novel. It also contains the acclaimed play THE MELTING POT, a work that, in his own words, influenced deeply President Theodore Roosevelt. Finally, it includes a volume of essays. The books are: THE BIG BOW MYSTERY THE MASTER — THE MELTING POTTHE OLD MAID’S CLUBTHE SERIO-COMIC GOVERNESSWITHOUT PREJUDICES — MERELY MARY ANNTHE GREY WIG — CHASSE-CROISETHE WOMAN BEATER — THE ETERNAL FEMININETHE SILENT SISTERS

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

The first in a new series of classic detective stories from the vaults of HarperCollins is the world's first locked-room mystery, a seemingly impossible crime story as powerful as any that have copied the scenario since."The Detective Story Club", launched by Collins in 1929, was a clearing house for the best and most ingenious crime stories of the age, chosen by a select committee of experts. Now, almost 90 years later, these books are the classics of the Golden Age, republished at last with the same popular cover designs that appealed to their original readers.Originally published as The Big Bow Mystery in 1891, and re-published by the Detective Club to coincide with a new film version called 'The Perfect Crime', Israel Zangwill's novel invented the concept of the 'locked room mystery' and influenced almost every crime writer thereafter.'A man is murdered for no apparent reason. He has no enemies and there seemed to be no motive for anyone murdering him. No clues remained and...