CHANCE. A Tale in Two Parts

1913. [one of 150 pre-publication 1913 copies] Garden City NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1913. Original dark blue cloth with front cover vignette in gilt.

First American Edition, first impression, pre-publication state (with the integral title page dated 1913). Doubleday Page had an estimated 5,000 copies printed in September 1913, but the London publisher Methuen then told them that the book could not be published until 1914 (due to a binder's strike in England); Methuen had allowed only 51 English copies with an integral 1913 title page to reach the public. As for Doubleday Page, "Because of the uncertainty of English publication date, and still hoping, despite the delay, to meet its fall publication schedule, Doubleday Page ordered approximately 150 copies of the first impression bound with a 1913 title-page date to be used for copyright, advance, and review copy purposes" [Supino]. The rest of the first impression, not yet bound, was equipped with new preliminary pages dated 1914 and was not issued until March 1914. This is a close-to-fine copy (minor rubbing at the extremities, spine gilt less than bright); loosely inserted is a color-pictorial "Six Big Books for 1913" DP&Co promotional flyer. Although there are purportedly three times as many 1913 American copies as 1913 English copies, in our 40+ years of experience these American copies are just as scarce. Supino A17.14.0 (this very copy); Cagle A17b(1). Provenance: discreet bookplate of the Conrad bibliographer David J. Supino; also, his brief penciled note appears on the front free endpaper, and his penciled collation appears on a loosely-inserted prior description of this copy.