first edition
1932 · Philadelphia
by PLOMER, William
Philadelphia: Farrar & Rinehart, 1932. First American Edition. Octavo (20cm); publisher's tan cloth boards, lettered in brown on spine and front cover; green top-stain; pictorial endpapers; dust jacket; 378pp. Corners gently bumped, tiny chip at spine crown, rear panel very slightly wrinkled, else Very Good or better. Novel based on the true case of James Achew who murdered Sybil Da Costa, the mother of his daughter, and whose insanity plea was rejected though his death sentence would eventually be reprieved. Plomer himself had been a lodger in Achew's house the year of the murder in 1929. (See M.C. Rintoul's "Dictionary of Real People and Places in Fiction" (2014), p. 140.). (Inventory #: 41968)