The Road to Serfdom

The chief trap is not a book club but the Routledge 'Popular Edition' of October 1944, a cheaper reprint of the same year that is a 'first thus' rather than a first impression — its copyright page states the Popular Edition line. The abridged Reader's Digest condensation (April 1945) is a separate, much later abridgement and is not an edition of the full text. Later Chicago printings are reduced in trim size from the first, giving a quick physical tell.