A Question Of Proof In The Rare Dust-Jacket Blake, Nicholas

First edition in what is apparently the first state dust-wrapper. Near fine, read once or twice at most (fading to very top edge spine; some tanning to endpapers) in a very good plus dust-wrapper (fingernail-size chip to lower edge of front panel; other minor chipping including top edge of spine; a long closed tear to the front panel carefully re-joined flush and held on verso with thin strips of archival tissue tape; other closed tears held similarly). The question of a first and second states arises because there are two variations of the '7/6 net' to the white circle on the spine. The present copy has the price in dark blue ink (the same shade as the title to the spine and front panel) in a formal typeface, identical to a copy in one of the Legal Deposit Libraries, as opposed to the only other two copies I am aware of which both have the '7/6' in a handwritten-style of type (see image). It is reasonable to assume that the dark blue formal-type variation, as per the Legal Deposit copy and the present example, is the primary state, and that the black, 'handwritten-style' variation is the second. This is the first time I have handled a jacketed copy of Blake's first detective book, having just missed a copy at York Book Fair in the presumed second-state jacket over twenty-five years ago (such things stick in the mind).