Cornell Woolrich. Cover Charge. New York: Boni & Liveright, 1926. First edition. Octavo (7.5 x 5.125 inches; 190 x 130 mm.). 286, [2, blank] pages. Publisher's dark green cloth, spine and front board with a panel painted red, outlined in gilt on the front board, and lettered in gilt; publisher's device stamped in blind on the backstrip; top edge of text block trimmed, others untrimmed; plain endpapers. In the original, restored dust jacket, designed by Bobritsky. Spine slightly leaning; spine ends softly pushed; spine ends and corners with just a touch of wear; covers with a couple trivial surface scuffs. Endpapers faintly discolored in the gutter from the binding glue; leaf with pages [283]-[284] ("Apotheosis") remargined after a sizable chip to the fore-edge, another minor paper repair on the preceding leaf; some pages roughly opened. A near fine copy in a restored jacket with stabilized folds (some negligible associated flaking), chipping at the crown, fold edges, and bottom edge, as well as a v-tear in the upper margin of the rear panel, addressed with paper added and discreet color correction (not affecting any text), small interior hole along the front panel fold patched; general light soiling, price-clipped; presents as near fine.
"Leaving Columbia in 1925, Woolrich published his first novel, Cover Charge, in 1926 with Boni and Liveright, the firm that brought out Faulkner's first novel, Soldier's Pay, that same year and Hemingway's first American collection of stories, In Our Time, the year before. Over the next six years, Woolrich published five additional novels, most of them in the same Fitgeraldian [sic], Jazz Age vein." John T. Irwin. Unless the Threat of Death is Behind Them (Baltimore: 2006), p. 128. (#10160).
