From Russia, with Love
London: Cape, 1957. First Edition. Hardcover. 1st edition? It is not but watch out. Here is a complexity we can simplify. Our book’s copyright page conforms to the 1st printing because the 2nd printing adds “reprinted 1957” and it has not been added on our copy. But page 18, line 1, has “sexuality” corrected to “asexuality” a staunch marker of the 2nd printing. This mix of pages (1st printing copyright and 2nd printing text) is not noted (or we could not find it noted) in Gilbert’s brilliant bibliography (he cites 2 cloth types but with no priority, so unless you want both, they don’t matter). Our dustjacket is priced “13s. 6d. net” agreeing with the 1st printing, and worth our $1,500 asking price, and it is all the value here but, like the copyright page, the jacket can’t be trusted in judging priority for the book. Fine in a dustjacket with 2 chips to the back fold and some other, less bothersome wear, otherwise it is very good. Fine / very good. Item #789
Maybe Cape just used up the sheets for the 1st printing of the text before the sheets for the 1st printing of the preliminary pages ran out, and maybe some additional copies were bound, like ours, using 2nd printing text and 1st printing preliminaries. Maybe it is more complicated than that, or maybe it is less complicated, or maybe it is something nefarious though our book does not look to have been tampered with. It might prove to be a rare state, or might not, though if it is rare, it is not the kind of rarity that is normally esteemed.
Now, lean in. We may not have the only copy like this because more than a few of them may have been issued like ours and honorably sold before the bibliography was published. Or careless bookshops may have sold copies like ours since 2012 and called them 1st printings. And if there are more of them, I’ll wager that some are for sale right now, and being described as 1st printings, though they are 2nd printings with the corrected page 18, etc., so be a careful buyer. And if you own a copy of From Russia, with Love look at page 18 and see if it has the misprint, and if it doesn’t, then try to get your money back. And if you can’t get your money back and your dustjacket is correct then try to find another copy of the book that is fine enough to take your jacket.
Plainly, any other copy of From Russia, with Love that matches our book is low rent housing and, at its best, it is the 1st state of the 2nd printing and should not be called the 2nd state of the 1st printing (Book Code, from Octo, with love).
Price:
$1,500.00