2 Kenneth Millar (Ross Macdonald) first editions are documented on this shelf, from The Dark Tunnel (1944) to Blue City (1947) across 2 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Kenneth Millar (Ross Macdonald) title from later printings and book-club copies — the publisher and year to expect, the number-line or edition-statement conventions, and the tells that show up in online listings.

Identification only, per the house rule: no prices and no appraisals here. Checking a Kenneth Millar (Ross Macdonald) copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.

The Dark Tunnel — 1944 · Dodd, Mead & CompanyDodd, Mead's pre-1976 practice is the governing point: the firm listed no additional printings on the copyright page of a first edition, and used no number line until 1976, so a first is identified by the absence of any later-printing notice, with 1944 present on both the title page and the copyright page. Physically: octavo, 241 pp., bound in publisher's red cloth stamped in black; one ABAA dealer additionally…. The census claim is correct: Dodd, Mead & Company, New York, 1944 is the true first, and it is Millar's true debut — the book most often missing from an otherwise complete Ross Macdonald run. No contemporaneous UK edition is documented in the sources consulted, so there is no UK-vs-US precedence question to resolve here and no second edition to name as co-first. The later retitlings are firsts thus only: a…. No book-club issue of the 1944 Dodd, Mead first is documented in the sources consulted. The two practical traps on this title are not club editions at all: first, facsimile dust jackets, which are so common that most copies offered in the trade carry one — a jacket should be examined for modern paper and printing before it is accepted as original; second, the retitled reprints (I Die Slowly), which are frequently….
Blue City — 1947 · Alfred A. KnopfKnopf, New York, 1947, with "FIRST EDITION" stated on the copyright page. Knopf's practice through the 1940s was to state "First Edition" on the copyright page of first printings and to note subsequent printings, so a copyright page carrying the statement with no reprint notice identifies the first; "First American Edition" was reserved for books already published abroad and does not apply here. Bound in red to…. The census claim stands: the US Knopf 1947 edition, issued under Millar's real name, is the true first. It is his third novel, published before he created Lew Archer and before he adopted the Ross Macdonald pseudonym, so the author statement itself is a precedence marker. The first UK edition followed from Cassell, London, and is catalogued variously as 1948 or 1949 depending on the dealer; it is a later edition…. Critical trap: Knopf blind-stamps its own Borzoi colophon on the rear board of its trade printings, and this is routinely mistaken for a book-club blind stamp — the Borzoi device on the rear board is not evidence of a club printing. Genuine club printings are identified by the usual tells: no price present at the jacket flap, a blind stamp or small dot on the rear board, lighter bulk, and cheaper paper stock. No….

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