I, Claudius

The sharpest reprint tell is the remainder issue: orange cloth copies distributed by W. H. Smith, with the genealogical table omitted — orange cloth plus a missing family tree marks a remainder, not a first. Nine further impressions followed between May 1934 and October 1935 (May, June, September and December 1934; January, May and October 1935), so an "Arthur Barker 1934" title page is not by itself sufficient: the impression statement decides it, and all later impressions were printed by Hazell, Watson and Viney alone. The "CHOSEN BY THE BOOK SOCIETY" band refers to the UK Book Society, a subscription club that circulated the publisher's own first-impression sheets — it is not evidence of a book-club reprint and should not be read as one. On the American side the pattern to expect is documented on the sequel: the Harrison Smith and Robert Haas Claudius the God was issued simultaneously with a Book-of-the-Month Club printing distinguished by a gold-stamped medallion on the binding and by jacket text.