8vo (175 x 115 mm). Original wrappers printed in red and blue and advertisement leaf bound in. (Short tear lower corner repaired verso, some soiling.) Later green cloth gilt (light rubbing to extremities). Provenance: Perry Moistad (bookplate).

 

FIRST EDITION, first issue with hand-corrected publication date in ink to upper wrapper.  Stevenson's classic novella was intended to be published during Christmas 1885, but according to publisher Charles Longman, "when it was ready the bookstalls were already full of Christmas numbers, etc., and the trade would not look at it" (Balfour, The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson, 1901, vol. 2, p. 17). The publisher postponed the novella’s release to January 1886 but the wrapper had already been printed, so the printed date was changed by hand from 1885 to 1886. Prideaux 17; McKay 348.