The Tongue-tied Canary

First edition, first printing.  224pp.  In black cloth-covered boards with red lettering on gold relief on the spine.  8vo. Cloth a little worn, gently rounded on corners and spine ends.  Pages a little off-bright but else interbnally neat, clean and tight.  In its original dust wrapper, rubbed  and nicked  on edges, corners and spine ends with minor loss. Dust jacket now protected in a Mylar wrapper fitted without the use of tape or adhesives.

Nicolas Bentley, the son of crime writer E C Bentley, was a leading commercial artist and humourist in the1920s and 30s.  The dust wrapper claims this as his first novel but it wasn’t – it was preceded by Gammon and Espionage a decade earlier.