The Chinese Maze Murders by Robert van Gulik

VAN GULIK, Robert. The Chinese Maze Murders: A Chinese Detective Story Suggested by Three Original Ancient Chinese Plots. Singapore, Eastern Universities Press, 1956.

First English-language edition of Van Gulik’s first fictional Judge Dee stories, with exquisite illustrations by the author.

‘Now in my opinion antiquity has no detective that can compare with Judge Dee. For many years I have been sedulously collecting notes about the cases solved by his brilliant mind…’.

The Chinese Maze Murders comprises three mysteries drawn from authentic Chinese murder casebooks and centres around the semi-fictional character Judge Dee, loosely inspired by the Tang magistrate and statesman Di Renjie (630-700). Originally published in Japanese in 1951, a Chinese edition was released two years later.

Robert van Gulik was a Dutch orientalist and diplomat.

Octavo, pp. 322, with 19 plates drawn by the author; near fine; original black cloth lettered and decorated in red to front cover and spine, illustrated pastedown and flyleaves, with the original dust jacket illustrated by the author (some spotting to edges, spine ends gently rolled, jacket lightly stained, spine sunned, a few nicks to edges, short closed tear to foot of front joint); bookseller’s ticket ‘City Book Store Ltd Singapore – K Lumpur’ to front pastedown.