Before The Fact Iles, Francis

Very Good; moderately cocked spine; light mottling to the cloth; some tanning/spotting to edges of the text block; some tanning/spotting to endpapers, including some offsetting of the area where the mull underlies the pastedowns onto the opposite page; the page edges are all trimmed, except for the first nine pages or so of the book, which appear to have been opened along the top edge with a paper knife after the book was bound, resulting in a few pages having rough edges that stick up above the trimmed edges and bear more spotting/tanning than the trimmed edges; a 1/2" tear at the top of the half-title page and a 7/8" long tear at the fore edge of the page reading "PART ONE", which is the second page after the title page; else Fine. In a Very Good dust jacket, priced 7/6 on the spine; minor edgewear; spine tanned; else Fine; in a clear archival plastic sleeve. First edition with black cloth boards with yellow titles and 1932 noted on the title page with no additional dates noted. Small sticker on bottom of front pastedown notes "A.H. Spencer Pty. Ltd, New, Secondhand and Rare Booksellers, Melbourne Australia." Wikipedia notes: "Albert Henry Spencer (1886 - 1971), often referred to as A. H. Spencer, was an Australian bookseller. He was a specialist in antiquarian bookselling and Australiana and established the Hill of Content bookshop in Melbourne, one of that city's 'finest bookshops'. He has been called 'one of the last links with an heroic age of Australian bookselling and collecting'" Since he sold new and used books, it's possible that he was the original seller of this book when it was new. The novel was the basis for Alfred Hitchcock's 1941 film "Suspicion", starring Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine.