RARE! "Clues - A Journal of Detection" - First Edition!

The very first, extremely hard to find issue of the premiere academic journal devoted to detetective and mystery fiction:

 "Clues - A Journal of Detection"

Though the publication itself is still in print and available, primarily on-line, by McFarland Publishing, this first edition of the original version published by Bowling Green University Popular Press in 1980, is of a different format: 6" x 9", card-stock covers, 136 pages, and was once available in bookstores.

The list of articles--many, for this issue, devoted to the work of Travis McGee-creator John D. MacDonald--gives an idea of the wide variety of tone as well as content:

• Crime Fiction: Some Varieties of Historical Experience
• Evil as Illusion in the Detective Story
• Melodrama and Manners: Changing Attitudes toward Class Distinctions in English Detective Fiction, 1868 - 1939
• Kojak, the Godfather, and the City
• Miss Jane Marple and Aging in Literature
• Oscar Wilde and Sherlock Holmes: A Literary Mystery
• Vera Caspary's Vanishing Females: Laura, Evvie, and Bedelia
• Old Sleuth, Nineteenth Century "Nipper": America's First Serialized Detective and His World
• John D. MacDonald: A Little Ecology Goes a Long Way
• Introduction and Comment (by John D. MacDonald)
• The Mythology of Crime and Violence
• McGee's Girls
• The Making of a Tale-Spinner: John D. MacDonald's Early Pulp Mystery Stories
• Cops and Detectives
• Travis McGee as Traditional Hero
• The Reluctant Hero: Reflections on Vocation and Heroism in the Travis McGee Novels of John D. MacDonald
• The Science Fiction Mystery Novels of Asimov, Bester, and Lem: Fusions and Foundations
• Morality and the Detective Hero: Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe
• Dignity in the Detective Novel
• Martin Beck: The Swedish Version of Barney Miller Without the Canned Laughter
• John D. MacDonald as Social Critic

Aside from some slight wear to the corners and cover edges, the publication is in excellent shape.  (Note the $5.00 price on the cover in the photo.  The current Macfarland edition goes for $30.00 for individuals, $75.00 for institutions, and only averages about 80 pages!)

A must for the mystery aficionado!