THE HOUSE WITHOUT A KEY

First edition, first printing of the first Charlie Chan book. Publisher's original orange cloth with green titles to the upper board and spine, in dustwrapper. Top edge orange. A better than very good copy, the binding square and firm with some mild bumping at the spine tips and corners, the cloth fresh. The contents are clean throughout and without inscriptions or stamps. Complete with the good or slightly better rubbed, torn and creased dustwrapper that is chipped with a little loss to the bottom of the spine and fold corners. The correct first edition dustwrapper remains bright, in one piece, and without repair or restoration, seldom encountered thus.

The first of the Detective Charlie Chan mysteries, adapted several times for stage and screen. A Haycraft Queen Cornerstone (one of the most influential works of mystery fiction as listed by the crime fiction historian Howard Haycraft and Ellery Queen). Hubin.