8vo. Half-title. Original dark blue cloth stamped in light blue and red; in unclipped printed dust jacket (spine panel faded, chipping and some minor soiling).  
 
FIRST EDITION, with "A-P" below the edition statement on the copyright page. In a later state dust jacket, printed in green and yellow with the price "$2.50," with single-spaced blurbs on front panel and without single-spaced blurbs on spine panel. Wright’s novel about Bigger Thomas, set on the South Side of Chicago, was an immediate best-seller, selling over 250,000 hardcover copies within three weeks of its release.