HAMMETT, DASHIELL. 1894-1961.
The Maltese Falcon. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1930.
8vo, Original gray cloth stamped in black and blue, pictorial dust jacket. Dust jacket price-clipped (as usual), expertly restored with a few letters on spine panel in pen and ink facsimile, small area of upper panel restored affecting head of falcon.

FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE dust jacket with the summary printed on the front flap. First serialized in Black Mask beginning in September 1929. The dust-jacket blurb quotes Joseph Shaw, editor of Black Mask: 'We want to go on record as saying that this story is a marvelous piece of writing—the finest detective story it has ever been our privilege to read in book form, in any magazine of any kind, or in manuscript....' The basis of John Huston's masterful film noir of the same name starring Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor and Peter Lorre. Layman A.3.1.a; Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone.
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