I very much enjoy captioned illustrations. The kind that accompany (usually older) novels or stories, the caption an excerpt from a pivotal scene. When I find old books in shops, you can bet I’ll buy it if it has an exceptionally smashing illustration-caption combo, regardless of how promising the rest of the book appears.

I particularly enjoy these illustrations out of context. They are, of course, meant to supplement the larger work, but I prefer them as standalone stories: one brief (and usually action-packed) moment, enough to set the imagination running wild to construct the rest of the story.

There are way too many gems to pick from (read: you can bet this won’t be the last Three Things featuring captioned illustrations), so today let’s narrow the subject matter down to sleuths; specifically, sleuths originating in the 1930s, shall we? We’ll begin with an illustration from a Nero Wolfe story (and while you’re at it, check out the rest of this fantastic illustration collection on flickr), then move on to Dick Tracy (from a Big Little Book), and finish with one of my childhood heroes, Nancy Drew.

Thornton Utz, illustrator. Accompanying a Nero Wolfe story written by Rex Stout. The American Magazine, August 1951. Via leifpeng.

Chester Gould, creator.  Newman, Paul S. Dick Tracy Encounters Facey. Racine, Wisconsin: Whitman Publishing Company, 1967.

Russell H. Tandy, illustrator. Keene, Carolyn. The Sign of the Twisted Candles. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1933. Via University of Maryland Libraries.