VANCE, Louis Joseph — THE ROAD TO EN-DOR

New York City E. P. Dutton & Company 1st edition pp. 396. 8vo. Bound in publishers orange cloth with black lettering. Boards bumped. Cloth clean and bright. Endpapers replaced. Lib. stamp to interior page & top edge; else clean, tight & vg. Vance (1879-1933) was an American novelist best known for his character Michael Lanyard, aka 'The Lone Wolf', who was featured in eight books and 24 films between 1917 and 1949. Vance - a mystery writer - died a mysterious death. Shortly after separating from his wife of 35 years, he was found dead in his apartment, sitting in a partially burnt armchair - only the upper half of which had caught fire. He was known to be a heavy smoker, and had a high alcohol content in his body. One theory of how the fire started was spontaneous combustion of Vance's body, but neither this theory, nor any other, was conclusive in establishing how the fire started. This is a scarce title with a mysterious printing history. It is usually thought that the first printing appeared in January, 1925, with at least four more printings that year. However, prior to 1929, Dutton had no definate scheme to identify first editions, although Zempel & Verkler quotes a 1928 publisher's statement that: 'Recently, a copyright notice behind a title-page, on which nothing occurs but that, is an indication it is a first....' Our copy states that the book is 'Copyright, 1923-1924'. The list of titles, facing the title page, shows 23 titles, although by 1925 Vance (a prolific writer) was known to have published 25 titles. Our research indicates that this title was serialized from October, 1923, to January, 1924, in a women's magazine, and this may explain the curious copyright notice. It is, therefore, almost certain that our copy precedes one with a copyright notice dated 1925, and is thus the true first edition.