[‘My British public is not being discriminated against’: Lawrence G. Blochman, American writer of detective fiction.] Typed Letter Signed to Eileen M. Cond, English autograph collector, discussing English publication of his books.

1p, 4to. Twenty-three lines. Large sprawling signature ‘Lawrence G. Blochman’. In fair condition, worn and creased on lightly-discoloured paper. The recipient, an enthusiastic autograph collector, has evidently asked him to sign a bookplate to be stuck in his latest book ‘’Recipe for Homicide’. Her note has finally reached him ‘through channels (via my English publisher through my London agent to my New York agent)’. He is glad she finds the book entertaining, ‘even though you had not yet, at the time of writing, discovered the culprit’. He is returning the bookplate ‘with as much inscription as I could crowd on to it’. He continues: ‘It is indeed a long time between Blochman books, and you may rest assured that my British public is not being discriminated against. It is just that, for economic reasons, I have found it more profitable to write short stories and articles for the magazines. Writing books, in the current state of the market, is almost a luxury - unless, of course, one should happen to turn out a best-seller, a fate which I have unfortunately been spared to date.’ The only one of his books not to have appeared in England is his ‘Dr. Coffee’ collection ‘Diagnosis: Homicide’, which ‘won the Edgar Allan Poe Award of the Mystery Writers of America a few years ago’. It seems that British publishers are ‘prejudiced against volumes of short stories, which they say do not sell’. He has, however, been receiving royalties for an English paperback edition.