RAYMOND CHANDLER FIRST EDITIONS AT
ASH RARE BOOKS
43 HURON ROAD
LONDON SW17 8RE
UNITED KINGDOM

New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 1940. First edition. "It was a warm day, almost the end of March, and I stood outside the barber shop looking up at the jutting neon sign of a second floor dine and dice emporium ...". His second and most widely celebrated novel – a Haycraft-Queen cornerstone of the genre.
Crown 8vo (182 x 122cm). [viii],276,[iv]pp. Bound in an elegant recent half blue morocco, banded, and lettered in gilt; original cloth upper panel and backstrip preserved at rear; a handful of minor marks, but a very good and attractive copy. Bruccoli II-1a.

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London : Hamish Hamilton, (1950). First British edition. A collection of seven short stories, none previously published in the United Kingdom, together with an interesting and important introduction on pulp fiction, and a concluding essay on detective fiction in general.
Crown 8vo (186 x 119mm). (xii),(334),[ii]pp. Bound in a smart recent half burgundy morocco, banded and gilt; a couple of faint marks, a few faint edge-spots, but otherwise a very good copy, attractively bound.

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New York : Avon Publishing Co., (1950). Second edition. Four early stories – “Finger Man” (1934), “Smart-Aleck Kill” (1934), “The Bronze Door” (1939) and “The Simple Art of Murder” (1944) – originally published in book form as Murder Mystery Monthly 43 in 1946 – and here redesigned and in pocket format. New Avon Library 219.
Foolscap 8vo (17cm). [ii],153,[v]pp. Original pictorial wrappers – blonde in luck at the roulette table; all edges red; minor wear at tips; a little rubbed; slight creasing, but a good copy. No copy of this edition located in any major UK library. Bruccoli VII-2.

SOLD