The Pothunters
London, A. & C. Black, Ltd., 1915 [second impression]/ 1902.
Octavo, 272 pages plus 10 plates by R. Noel Pocock (the frontispiece with a tissue-guard).
Colour-pictorial blue cloth, with the spine lettered in yellow and light blue; cloth lightly marked; spine sunned, with minimal expert conservation to the head and foot; front free endpaper removed (but the flyleaf is a blank sheet of the same paper); tissue-guard heavily tanned, offsetting a little onto the title page; a very good copy (internally excellent).
Wodehouse's rare first book, here in its apparently unrecorded second impression. The sheets of the 1902 first edition were twice reissued in this binding (McIlvaine A1a2 and A1a3), with the date generally accepted to have been 1915, based on the copyright page of the 1924 second edition, which notes that the work was 'Reprinted 1915'. This copy differs substantially from copies of the second issue. It is substantially larger in format (200 × 145 mm as opposed to 191 × 130 mm), and is evidently a stereotype reprint with variant title page (dated 1915 and with the imprint changed to A. & C. Black). This must be the 1915 second impression referred to in the second edition, and the more common reissue of the first edition sheets must therefore be somewhat earlier. Not in McIlvaine (but see A1a2).
Item #102018
Price (AUD):
$5,000.00