Red Harvest. by HAMMETT, Dashiell - 1929

New York: Alfred A. Knopf,, 1929. An inscribed copy of Hammett's landmark first book Octavo. Original red cloth with yellow skull and crossbones to front cover and titles blocked in black and yellow to spine. Housed in a custom cloth solander box. Title printed in orange and black with skull-and-crossbones vignette in orange. San Francisco bookseller's ticket to rear pastedown. Spine faded and minimally cocked, slight rubbing to extremities, touch of wear to very tips, a couple of small marks to cloth; a very good copy. First edition, first printing, of Hammett's landmark first book, inscribed by the author, "Billy Greer Hobson, keep a notebook and pencil - the story of the other fellows' crime pays. Dashiell Hammett", in blue ink on the second blank. The recipient was William Greer Hobson (1924-1996), a bookseller from Phoenix, Arizona, whose father founded Hobson's Bookstore. William Greer Hobson took on the running of the shop in the 1940s; this copy has his adult bookplate to the front pastedown. Layman A1.1.a; Wagner, Ole, Social Criticism in Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest and the Maltese Falcon (2007).