The nineteenth century is considered by many the Golden Age of the modern detective story. From the birth of the genre through Edger Allen Poes C. Auguste Dupin, to the most famous clue seeking sleuth of them all, Arthur Conan Doyles Sherlock Holmes, a variety of literary minds turned to crime writing.

Each story in this highly entertaining collection is significant for its contribution to the development of crime solving literature. There are ghastly crimes committed in the dark of night and master detectives at work to insure that justice is served. In a story by Thomas Hardy, we are introduced to a thief who outwits his hangman, and in an attack on civic self- righteousness, Mark Twain shows us a man who succeeds in stealing virtue from an entire town.