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The Thin Man

Lot 81
28.09.2023 13:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Sold
£ 17 640
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
Buyer Premiumsee on Website%
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The auction is completed. No bids can be placed anymore.
Archive
ID 1016446
Lot 81 | The Thin Man
Estimate value
£ 8 000 – 12 000
The Thin Man

Dashiell Hammett

HAMMETT, Dashiell (1894-1961). The Thin Man. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1934.



Signed first edition of Hammett's controversial fifth and final novel, in the dust-jacket. Sinclair Lewis described Hammett as ‘undoubtedly the best of American detective story writers, and The Thin Man is certainly the most breathless of his stories’ (Nolan). The book was banned in Boston and bowdlerized in Britain over the use of the word ‘erection,’ and while the word was excised from the London edition (‘erections did not, at that time, exist in the English novel’ according to Julian Symons), Alfred Knopf put an ad in The New York Times fanning the flames of the scandal. Layman A6.1a; see William F. Nolan, Hammett: A Life at the Edge, p. 139.



Octavo. (Faint marginal stain in first few leaves, a few light thumb-marks.) Original greyish-green cloth stamped in red and blue (discolouration to cloth); original dust-jacket printed in black and red, with ‘Recommended by The Book-of-the-Month-Club’ sticker to front panel (jacket possibly supplied, short tear at foot of lower joint, spine ends lightly frayed and some corners rubbed); custom morocco-backed box.

Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
Preview
28.09.2023 – 28.09.2023
Phone +44 (0)20 7839 9060
Email
4FQ.AYGKAGLUQ@FO3G@
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