# Is "Mystery Mile" by Margery Allingham a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Mystery Mile by Margery Allingham (Jarrolds, 1930) is identified by: The true first is Jarrolds, London, 1930 — the Library of Congress catalogues it as "London, Jarrolds limited [1930]", the square brackets indicating the date is not printed on the title page, which matches the Classic Crime Fiction checklist's own bracketed [1930] for the Jarrolds titles. UK precedes US and the census claim is confirmed.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- CONFIRMED. The true first is Jarrolds, London, 1930 — the Library of Congress catalogues it as "London, Jarrolds limited [1930]", the square brackets indicating the date is not printed on the title page, which matches the Classic Crime Fiction checklist's own bracketed [1930] for the Jarrolds titles
- The Classic Crime Fiction first-edition checklist records the binding as red cloth lettered in black with a priced jacket (price present at the flap); that binding description is single-sourced here and was not independently corroborated
- Jarrolds is not covered by the standard publisher-identification guides consulted, so identification rests on the undated title page together with the copyright page and the absence of any later-impression notice; there is no number line
- The first American edition is Doubleday, Doran, published for The Crime Club, Garden City, N.Y., 1930 — corroborated twice over by the Library of Congress record and by the Felony & Mayhem 2011 reprint's title-page verso, which states "First U.S. edition: 1930 (Doubleday Crime Club)"; under the Doubleday, Doran rule it states "First Edition" on the copyright page, with no statement on later printings
- Publisher imprint reads Jarrolds
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Margery Allingham |
| Publisher | Jarrolds |
| Year | 1930 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | CONFIRMED. The true first is Jarrolds, London, 1930 — the Library of Congress catalogues it as "London, Jarrolds limited [1930]", the… |
| Book-club edition exists? | Yes |

## Points of issue
CONFIRMED. The true first is Jarrolds, London, 1930 — the Library of Congress catalogues it as "London, Jarrolds limited [1930]", the square brackets indicating the date is not printed on the title page, which matches the Classic Crime Fiction checklist's own bracketed [1930] for the Jarrolds titles. The Classic Crime Fiction first-edition checklist records the binding as red cloth lettered in black with a priced jacket (price present at the flap); that binding description is single-sourced here and was not independently corroborated. Jarrolds is not covered by the standard publisher-identification guides consulted, so identification rests on the undated title page together with the copyright page and the absence of any later-impression notice; there is no number line. The first American edition is Doubleday, Doran, published for The Crime Club, Garden City, N.Y., 1930 — corroborated twice over by the Library of Congress record and by the Felony & Mayhem 2011 reprint's title-page verso, which states "First U.S. edition: 1930 (Doubleday Crime Club)"; under the Doubleday, Doran rule it states "First Edition" on the copyright page, with no statement on later printings.

## Is this the true first?
UK precedes US and the census claim is confirmed. Jarrolds, London, January 1930 (month per the Margery Allingham Society) is the accepted true first; Doubleday, Doran for The Crime Club, Garden City, N.Y., 1930 is the first American edition and is collected in its own right — name both. One residual: no source consulted gives a month for the US Crime Club issue, so UK precedence rests on the January 1930 UK date against an undated-within-year US issue rather than on two compared months. This is the second Albert Campion book (after The Crime at Black Dudley) and the first in which Campion leads; the title was not changed for the US market.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
On the US side the Doubleday/Crime Club book-club tells are the ones to check and are well documented: "Book Club Edition" printed at the foot of the front jacket flap or no price at the flap at all, a blind stamp debossed into the rear board near the spine, and a five-digit code in a white block on the jacket rear. Crime Club book-club copies are common for this title and are routinely offered as firsts. The Heinemann, London, 1966 issue and the Penguin/Felony & Mayhem issues are later reprints, not first editions.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Mystery Mile* by Margery Allingham a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/mystery-mile
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.