The Torquemada Puzzle Book: A Miscellany of Crosswords, Acrostics, Anagrams, Verbal Pastimes and Problems, Etc., Etc. & Cain's Jawbone: A Torquemada Mystery Novel
London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1934.
First edition. 320 pp. + 16 blank perforated sheets of tracing paper at rear (one detached and laid in). Bound in publisher's red and black cloth with black spine lettering; lacking dust jacket. Very Good with sunning to spine, light wear and soiling to cloth, slight bumping to upper corners, and light foxing to textblock edges, endpapers, and last few pages. Contents lightly toned, pencil notations to almost every page of Cain's Jawbone section and to detached tracing paper sheet.
A book of puzzles containing the notoriously difficult bibliomystery Cain's Jawbone, which only three people have officially solved. The author's pseudonym, taken from the famous torturer of the Spanish Inquisition, has proven to be apt. As Mel Brooks put it in The History of the World Part 1, "Torquemada; do not employ him for compassion. Torquemada; do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada; do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it... you can't Torquemada anything."
Price: $1,250