The Hamlet

No book-club issue for 1940 was documented in the sources consulted, so the stated "First Printing" remains the decisive test. The practical trap is later Random House printings, which keep the 1940 title page but lose the copyright-page statement; copies in red cloth rather than black are recorded as early-but-later Random House printings. The rear-panel jacket count is the quickest screen — ten Random House fiction titles indicates the first-state jacket.