Heinemann, 1932.
Allan had a lot of dust jackets over the years, as well as a big bookcase of books that needed jackets. The supply of the former seemed to decrease more than the latter. I took some of each when he died although I have no great hopes of complete books emerging from either end. This one, however, I don't remember picking up. Its strengthened with paper attached to the verso, which at least has served to keep the whole thing intact. The cover illustration, of a train plunging to Istanbul, is lovely.
The spine of the jacket states "Second Printing." Second printing means second printing, right? Well, this book has a convoluted history. The first printing was recalled because J.B. Priestley felt that a character libeled him. That issue is therefore very scarce. Royal Books has a copy of the book on offer in Catalog 35 for $4,500. It is the second issue text with the "second printing" notation on the jacket spine. Royal says the notation is hand-stamped although in the photo it looks like the notation on Allan's copy, which does not appear hand-stamped. Or maybe I just don't get hand-stamping.
The Royal description goes on: "It is our educated guess that Heinemann stamped a few copies of the wrapper in order to show J.B. Priestley and other members of the Book Society that their requested textual changes (i.e., first edition, second issue of the book) had been made. There is no recorded jacket variant such as this example, nor have we ever encountered another." I still don't understand why the Royal copy is not simply a second printing but whatever.
I guess I could spend $250 for a copy of the book and put this jacket on. Even then it would probably be a second printing, no? Not that I have $250 anyway.
Update: Auction at PBA today that includes as item 93 a copy without jacket of Stamboul Train, the second issue. The opening bid would be $150 which seemed high but still tempted me. So I took the jacket over there. And it didn't fit. The jacket was noticeably taller than the book. Sigh. So apparently it will only fit a book stamped second edition.
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