# Is "The Wrong Case" by James Crumley a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Wrong Case by James Crumley (Random House, 1975) is identified by: Random House's test for this era is the words "First Edition" on the copyright page: the statement is present on the first printing and removed on the second and later printings, which is the primary and governing point. US Random House, New York, 1975 is the true first — the census claim is confirmed.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Random House's test for this era is the words "First Edition" on the copyright page: the statement is present on the first printing and removed on the second and later printings, which is the primary and governing point
- Dealer copies of the first printing also report a full Random House number line beginning with 2 (the house form "2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3"), but the guides disagree on when Random House adopted the number line — one places the practice from about 1970, another from 1976 — so on a 1975 book treat the "First Edition" statement as the required point and the number line as corroborating rather than mandatory
- The collation is 272pp; the binding is reported as blue cloth-covered boards with light green paper, the title and the author's initials stamped in silver on the spine and front cover
- The jacket should be unclipped with the price present at the flap
- No first-state text error is documented for this title
- Publisher imprint reads Random House
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | James Crumley |
| Publisher | Random House |
| Year | 1975 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | Random House's test for this era is the words "First Edition" on the copyright page: the statement is present on the first printing and… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
Random House's test for this era is the words "First Edition" on the copyright page: the statement is present on the first printing and removed on the second and later printings, which is the primary and governing point. Dealer copies of the first printing also report a full Random House number line beginning with 2 (the house form "2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3"), but the guides disagree on when Random House adopted the number line — one places the practice from about 1970, another from 1976 — so on a 1975 book treat the "First Edition" statement as the required point and the number line as corroborating rather than mandatory. The collation is 272pp; the binding is reported as blue cloth-covered boards with light green paper, the title and the author's initials stamped in silver on the spine and front cover. The jacket should be unclipped with the price present at the flap. No first-state text error is documented for this title.

## Is this the true first?
US Random House, New York, 1975 is the true first — the census claim is confirmed. It is Crumley's second book and his first crime novel — his first book was the Vietnam novel One to Count Cadence (1969) — and it introduces Milo Milodragovitch. The census note's comparative-scarcity claim relative to The Last Good Kiss is a market judgement rather than a bibliographical point and is not carried here.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue of the Random House first is documented. The documented later-issue tell is the copyright page itself: a second or later printing is distinguished by the deletion of the "First Edition" statement.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Wrong Case* by James Crumley a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-wrong-case
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.