Victory. An Island Tale. by CONRAD, Joseph - 1915

London: Methuen & Co. Ltd,, 1915. A remarkable survival from a watershed moment in British publishing First British edition, first impression, in an exceptional example of the scarce dust jacket, one of the earliest graphically designed jackets issued by a British publisher, featuring a specially commissioned illustration not based on the cloth cover design nor an illustration in the book. Victory was published as part of Methuen's "Popular Novels" series, which marked a sea change in the history of British publishing and of the dust jacket. Earlier jackets typically consisted of lettering and an illustrated design based on the blocking of the binding. Only two years earlier, the jacket for Methuen's 1913 edition of John Oxenham's Bees in Amber bore the jingle: "This outer wrap is only meant / To keep my coat from detriment. / Please take it off, and let me show / The better one I wear below." Their "Popular Novels" series also included D. H. Lawrence's The Rainbow and P. G. Wodehouse's Something New. This copy is in the first state, with the comma after "Essex Street" on the title page. The novel was first published in the US earlier the same year. Octavo. Original red cloth, spine lettered in gilt. With dust jacket. Housed in a custom red quarter morocco slipcase and chemise. Tiny bumps to cloth at extremities; dust jacket slightly rubbed, extremities lightly worn with short split to front flap fold, overall remarkably bright, flaps without price as issued: a fine copy in near-fine dust jacket. Cagle A19b(1); Keating 113; Wise 25.