Epitaph for a Spy

Census claim confirmed. Hodder & Stoughton (London) 1938 is the true first edition of Ambler's third novel; there was no American edition until Knopf published it in New York in 1952, fourteen years later. The Knopf 1952 is the first American edition and a legitimate collecting target as the first appearance of Ambler's 1951 authorial footnote, but it is a first thus and no substitute for the 1938 first. One scholarly source reports the 1938 text was revised for the 1952 Knopf; the footnote is well documented across dealer catalogues, but the extent of any textual revision is not corroborated in the sources consulted and should not be stated as fact.