# Is "The Plague Court Murders" by Carter Dickson (John Dickson Carr) a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Plague Court Murders by Carter Dickson (John Dickson Carr) (William Morrow & Company, 1934) is identified by: William Morrow & Company, New York, 1934, 8vo; the first Sir Henry Merrivale novel. The US William Morrow (New York) 1934 edition is the true first and precedes the UK Heinemann (London) 1935 edition by a year; this order is confirmed by the Sotheby's catalogue record, Wikipedia's publication data and dealer cataloguing.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- William Morrow & Company, New York, 1934, 8vo; the first Sir Henry Merrivale novel
- Binding is original black cloth with the spine and upper cover stamped in red — independently confirmed by the Sotheby's 2021 Detective Fiction / Alexis Galanos Collection catalogue ("original black cloth, spine and upper cover stamped in red") and by dealer cataloguing that specifies the title and Morrow mystery logo in red on the front board "unlike later editions"
- The decisive copyright-page test comes from Morrow's house practice: per the Quill & Brush publisher reference, prior to 1973 Morrow only sometimes placed "First Printing (Month, Year)" on the copyright page but always indicated later printings — so the absence of any later-printing notice, not the presence of a first-printing statement, is what identifies the first
- The copyright notice reads "Copyright 1934 by William Morrow & Company, Inc." The jacket is present on the Sotheby's copy; refer to it only as a priced jacket with the price present at the flap
- Publisher imprint reads William Morrow & Company
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Carter Dickson (John Dickson Carr) |
| Publisher | William Morrow & Company |
| Year | 1934 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | William Morrow & Company, New York, 1934, 8vo; the first Sir Henry Merrivale novel |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
William Morrow & Company, New York, 1934, 8vo; the first Sir Henry Merrivale novel. Binding is original black cloth with the spine and upper cover stamped in red — independently confirmed by the Sotheby's 2021 Detective Fiction / Alexis Galanos Collection catalogue ("original black cloth, spine and upper cover stamped in red") and by dealer cataloguing that specifies the title and Morrow mystery logo in red on the front board "unlike later editions". The decisive copyright-page test comes from Morrow's house practice: per the Quill & Brush publisher reference, prior to 1973 Morrow only sometimes placed "First Printing (Month, Year)" on the copyright page but always indicated later printings — so the absence of any later-printing notice, not the presence of a first-printing statement, is what identifies the first. The copyright notice reads "Copyright 1934 by William Morrow & Company, Inc." The jacket is present on the Sotheby's copy; refer to it only as a priced jacket with the price present at the flap.

## Is this the true first?
The US William Morrow (New York) 1934 edition is the true first and precedes the UK Heinemann (London) 1935 edition by a year; this order is confirmed by the Sotheby's catalogue record, Wikipedia's publication data and dealer cataloguing. Both are collected — the Morrow as the true first, the Heinemann 1935 as the first British edition. Note for the Heinemann: per Quill & Brush, Heinemann's dated-title-page practice applies only to 1890–1921 and does not govern a 1935 book, so do not apply that rule here. Watch for the "first thus" trap of the modern American Mystery Classics reissue, which is a reprint, not an edition point.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No contemporaneous book-club issue of the 1934 Morrow printing is documented in the sources consulted. Because Morrow always noted later printings before 1973, any reprint or printing notice on the copyright page rules out the first. Later cheap reprints and paperbacks (Avon and others) carry their own imprint on the spine and title page and are easily separated; one Avon reprint is reported to add the subtitle "A Chief Inspector Masters Mystery", which is a reprint feature and was NOT confirmed on the Morrow first — do not use that subtitle as a first-edition point.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Plague Court Murders* by Carter Dickson (John Dickson Carr) a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-plague-court-murders
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.