LEROUX, GASTON. The Phantom of the Opera. Color frontispiece and four 2-page color illustrations by Andre Castaigne. 8vo, original pictorial brown cloth, front cover and spine stamped in white and blind, light spotting to top-edges, minimal wear to spine tips, tiny blemish to bottom of front board; dust jacket, unclipped, light soiling to panels with a few small stains to spine panel, 1 3/4-inch rectangular chip to bottom of front panel with loss of some letters, 20mm square chip to spine panel head touching three letters in the title, two small tape repairs on verso, few short closed tears, penciled price of $1.29 to top of front flap; front hinge cracked at frontis, internally clean. New York: Bobbs-Merrill Company, (1911)
first american edition, first printing with the imprint "Press of Braunworth & Co. Bookbinders and Printers Brooklyn, N.Y." at the foot of the copyright page.the only known extant copy in the first state dust jacket. This with the dust jacket design with the Phantom on the bell tower and not the stairwell; one of only two known copies of this variant and one of only three or four total known copies of the book to have retained its dust jacket. The present copy represents the second jacketed example to appear at auction (the first sold at Swann, 10 November, 2015, lot 212), and the first copy in the first state jacket without the $1.25 price on the spine panel. The true first, as here, was issued without a printed price thus allowing bookstores to assign their own price (beyond the suggested retail price), the later state possessing the $1.25 price as in the very few copies noted above. A cornerstone of the horror and mystery genres. Bleiler (1948), p. 179.
