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LEROUX, GASTON.
The Phantom of the Opera.
Color frontispiece and
four 2-page color illustrations by Andre Castaigne. 8vo, original pictorial brown cloth, front
cover and spine stamped in white and blind, light spotting to top-edges, minimal wear to
spine tips, tiny blemish to bottom of front board; dust jacket, unclipped, light soiling to
panels with a few small stains to spine panel, 1
3
/
4
-inch rectangular chip to bottom of front
panel with loss of some letters, 20mm square chip to spine panel head touching three let-
ters in the title, two small tape repairs on verso, few short closed tears, penciled price of
$1.29 to top of front flap; front hinge cracked at frontis, internally clean.
NewYork: Bobbs-Merrill Company, (1911)
[25,000/35,000]
FIRST AMERICAN EDITION
,
FIRST PRINTING
with the imprint “Press of Braunworth & Co.
Bookbinders and Printers Brooklyn, N.Y.” at the foot of the copyright page.
THE ONLY KNOWN
EXTANT COPY IN THE FIRST STATE DUST JACKET
.
This with the dust jacket design with the Phantom
on the bell tower and not the stairwell; one of only two known copies of this variant and one of only three
or four total known copies of the book to have retained its dust jacket.The present copy represents the sec-
ond jacketed example to appear at auction (the first sold at Swann, 10 November, 2015, lot 212), and
THE FIRST COPY IN THE FIRST STATE JACKET WITHOUT THE
$1.25
PRICE ON THE SPINE PANEL
.
The true first, as here, was issued without a printed price thus allowing bookstores to assign their own
price (beyond the suggested retail price), the later state possessing the $1.25 price as in the very few copies
noted above.A cornerstone of the horror and mystery genres. Bleiler (1948), p. 179.
Property sold to benefit the FOS Foundation
(fosfoundation.org)