Traitors and True Poles. Karen Majewski

(Bloody roses), Lekarka obłąkanych zbrodniarką (The criminal asylum keeper), Mężobójczyni (The husband killers), Mord w wagonie (Murder on the train), Piekielny zegar (The hellish clock), Tajemniczy mnich (The mysterious monk), Włamywacze (The burglars), and Wróg ludzi (Enemy of the people).

      Bibliographical information about these works is difficult to verify and the evidence is contradictory. Not only are authors and sources of origin undocumented, but their publishing history is also difficult to trace. Like many other Polish-American imprints of this period, most of the detective novels indicate a year of publication but do not identify the publisher, which can be deduced only from other evidence, such as the company catalogues that ran in newspapers, almanacs, and in the back pages of other books. Even these sources are not completely reliable, however. Wojciech Chojnacki notes that both Dyniewicz and Paryski catalogues were sometimes misleading as to which items were their own original publications and which imported.³ There is also some evidence that more than one publisher released the same novel. For instance, The Hellish Clock, published by Chicago’s Polish American Publishing Company (without a date), is also listed in Paryski company catalogues beginning in 1911. Paryski also lists Murder on the Train, though it also appears to have been published by Dyniewicz. Similar cases exist among other types of publications as well, particularly involving the Dyniewicz and Paryski firms. The competitive motive is obvious, but it is curious that both Paryski and Dyniewicz seem to have first published this novel in the same year. A publisher might be expected to pirate another’s proven seller, but since this does not seem to have been the case it is more likely that this novel was reprinted from a European import that came into possession of both companies around the same time. No proof of this origin has surfaced, however.

      Cover of A Victim of Hypnotism (1911), featuring the Polish-American detective Bronisław Sęp.