Identification points are listed only where two independent sources agree. Last reviewed 3 Nov 2026.
Value band from 3 sales in the last two years, updated 21 Oct 2026. Your copy's value depends on its printing and grade.
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Collins published the first edition in London for its Crime Club in June 1950, the same month as Dodd, Mead's New York edition. It is a hardback of 256 pages, about 19 cm tall, issued in a dust jacket. An abridged text, roughly half the book, ran in the Daily Express earlier in 1950, so the Collins book is the first complete British text. The later Collins Greenway edition (from 1967) is a larger book of 288 pages, about 21 cm, and is easy to tell apart.
Collins did not mark first editions or first impressions in any special way, so a Collins first, Crime Club titles included, carries no edition statement and is recognised by the absence of any later date and by the points for that title.
Read the full guide to Collins first editions, decade by decade, and check your copy's copyright page against it. Our number line decoder reads the printing from the row of numbers.
We have not yet confirmed the issue points that tell this first impression from later ones. Until we do, compare your copy's title page and copyright page with the publisher, place and year above: any later printing or edition statement means it is not this one.
Know the points? Tell us. We publish them, with credit, once a second source agrees.
Values run from about £215 for a copy in lower grades to £310 for the best copies, depending on the printing and the condition of the book and jacket. Based on 3 recorded sales.
Collins, London, in 1950, in hardback.
Points of issue are listed only where at least two independent sources agree. Last reviewed 3 November 2026. Reviewed by Harriet Ellis; read how we check facts.
For most books published since the 1920s, the original dust jacket carries a large share of the value, often most …
Read the guide →7 min readTo identify a first edition, check that your copy is the first printing of the first edition. Read the copyright …
Read the guide →6 min readBook condition grading uses a six-step trade scale: Fine, Near Fine, Very Good, Good, Fair and Poor. Collectors grade the …
Read the guide →