States, his studies in crime were printed and reprinted in a series of overlapping anthologies, generally titled on variants of the word "murder": Mainly Murder, The Enjoyment of Murder, Murder and More Murder, The Murderer's Companion, The Art of Murder and Nothing But Murder. The American public eagerly embraced Roughead's dry humour as well as his fascination with criminals who looked and sounded exactly like us but who inhabited a parallel dark and rarefied nether world. This was a reading audience who were being introduced to the masters of hard-boiled pulp fiction, authors who, as Raymond Chandler said, were "...giving murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse." As Alexander Woolcott noted, in an introduction to a Reader's Club edition of Roughead, even US President Franklin D. Roosevelt had a special shelf just outside the Oval Office, labelled "The President's Shelf", with the "rarest of brews" being Roosevelt's personal selection of Roughead. Roughead was also one of many editors of a series of trial accounts called Notable Scottish Trials, also published by William Hodge and Company. His first contribution to the Scottish trial series was the trial of Dr. Pritchard, the notorious Glasgow poisoner. He was later to contribute another nine trial accounts, including some of the more notorious criminal cases of old and new Edinburgh. In the early twenties, Roughead began a correspondence with American crime writer, Edmund Pearson, and a professional exchange of letters blossomed into a warm friendship for the next fifteen years. When Pearson published his landmark Studies in Murder in 1924, Roughead's praise for the work was enthusiastic, especially for Pearson's treatment of America's most famous murderess, Lizzie Borden of Fall River. In a letter to Pearson, Roughead said, "...honestly, I never enjoyed a case more than Miss Lizzie's. It is as unique as it is perfect: a flawless work of art...." Assessment According to Joyce Carol Oates: "Roughead's influence was enormous, and since his time "true crime" has become a crowded, flourishing field, though few writers of distinction have been drawn to it…. Roughead, much admired by Henry James, wrote in a style that combined intelligence, witty scepticism, and a flair for old-fashioned storytelling and moralising; his accounts of murder cases and trials have the advantage of being concise and pointed, like folk tales." Perhaps Roughead's greatest achievement was his analysis of Oscar Slater's