Hardback. xiii,237pp+publisher’s ads. Frontis portrait with tissue guard. Stamped ‘with the publisher’s compliments’ to the head of the title page. A first edition of one of Arthur Ransome’s earliest works published some 20 years before Swallows and Amazons. Ransome’s early foray in critiques and biographies was brought to a premature halt by his subsequent work on Oscar Wilde which embroiled him in a defamation court case. Ransome remained however very interested in crime fiction and reviewed for The Observer. Black cloth with decorative gilt titles to the front and gilt titles to the spine is slightly faded and has a faint mark to the front. Softened to corners. Uncut to fore-edge and top edge which are a little dusty. Text is clean. Binding is sound.