The Poisoned Chocolates Case

The true first is the UK edition: W. Collins Sons & Co. Ltd., London, June 1929. The US edition — Doubleday, Doran & Company / The Crime Club, Inc., Garden City, 1929 — is the first American edition and is separately collected; it was the Crime Club's Christmas 1929 jury selection, placing it late in the year and behind the June Collins publication. Note the confusing double use of 'Crime Club': in this pairing the Crime Club is the AMERICAN imprint, not the British one. The novel is an elaboration of Berkeley's long short story 'The Avenging Chance' (Pearson's Magazine, September 1929); the novel appeared before the story, and Sheringham's solution in the story is discarded in the novel.