Close Quarters

1st ed, 1st imp. 252pp. Book produced to War Economy Standards. Pale olive cloth-covered boards (a little rubbed at edges, rounded at corners, slightly soiled). Lending sheet on front free endpaper, else no other library markings. Internally neat and clean. In its original, vintage dust jacket (artwork by Bip Pares) (a little rubbed at edges with a few small edge chips, crumbling spine ends and perhaps a little faded. Dust jacket now in archival-quality mylar wrapper to protect & prolong the life of the jacket. It is not adhered to the book or to the jacket. Collectors please note – the 1951 edition of this crime novel is often quoted as the first edition. It isn’t. Hodder & Stoughton first published this novel in 1947 but wartime restrictions on paper usage enforced a small print run. Copies had sold out by the early 1950s, triggering a second edition in 1951. Only the 1947 edition has the dust jacket with Bip Pares artwork. True firsts, as this is, are very hard to find, especially complete with the original Bip Pares dust jacket.