And Four to Go
 | |
| Author | Rex Stout |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Bill English |
| Language | English |
| Series | Nero Wolfe |
| Genre | Detective fiction |
| Publisher | Viking Press |
Publication date | February 14, 1958 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 190 pp (first edition) |
| OCLC | 1460154 |
| Preceded by | If Death Ever Slept |
| Followed by | Champagne for One |
And Four to Go (British title Crime and Again) is a collection of Nero Wolfe mystery novellas by Rex Stout, published by the Viking Press in 1958. The book comprises four stories — three appearing previously in periodicals, and one making its debut in print:
- "Christmas Party" (Collier's, January 4, 1957, as "The Christmas-Party Murder")
- "Easter Parade" (Look, April 16, 1957, as "The Easter Parade Murder")
- "Fourth of July Picnic" (Look, July 9, 1957, as "The Labor Union Murder")
- "Murder Is No Joke", later expanded as "Frame-Up for Murder" and serialized in three issues of The Saturday Evening Post (June 21–July 5, 1958)
Publication history
- 1958, New York: The Viking Press, April 29, 1958, hardcover.[1]
- In his limited-edition pamphlet, Collecting Mystery Fiction #10, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Part II, Otto Penzler describes the first edition of And Four to Go: "Blue cloth, front cover and spine printed with red; rear cover blank. Issued in a mainly brick red dust wrapper."[2]
- In April 2006, Firsts: The Book Collector's Magazine estimated that the first edition of And Four to Go had a value of between $200 and $350. The estimate is for a copy in very good to fine condition in a like dustjacket.[3]
- 1958, New York: Viking (Mystery Guild), August 1958, hardcover. In the printing of "Easter Parade," a page presenting black-and-white versions of the four Look magazine photographs is placed between pages 96 and 97.
- The far less valuable Viking book club edition may be distinguished from the first edition in three ways:
- The dust jacket has "Book Club Edition" printed on the inside front flap, and the price is absent (first editions may be price clipped if they were given as gifts).
- Book club editions are sometimes thinner and always taller (usually a quarter of an inch) than first editions.
- Book club editions are bound in cardboard, and first editions are bound in cloth (or have at least a cloth spine).[4]
- 1959, London: Collins Crime Club, May 25, 1959, hardcover (as Crime and Again)
- 1959, New York: Bantam #A-2016, November 1959, paperback,35¢
- 1962, London: Fontana #629, 1962 (as Crime and Again)
- 1974, New York: Mystery #Q8528, December 1974, paperback, $1.25
- 1992, New York: Bantam Crime Line ISBN 0-553-24985-1 December 1992, paperback, Rex Stout Library edition with introduction by Jane Haddam
- 1997, Newport Beach, California: Books on Tape, Inc. ISBN 0-7366-4059-2 October 31, 1997, audio cassette (unabridged, read by Michael Prichard)
- 2010, New York: Bantam Crimeline ISBN 978-0-307-75569-8 July 21, 2010, e-book
References
- ^ Townsend, Guy M., Rex Stout: An Annotated Primary and Secondary Bibliography (1980, New York: Garland Publishing; ISBN 0-8240-9479-4), p. 85
- ^ Penzler, Otto, Collecting Mystery Fiction #9, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Part I (2001, New York: The Mysterious Bookshop, limited edition of 250 copies), p. 7
- ^ Smiley, Robin H., "Rex Stout: A Checklist of Primary First Editions." Firsts: The Book Collector's Magazine (Volume 16, Number 4), April 2006, p. 34
- ^ Penzler, Otto, Collecting Mystery Fiction #9, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Part I, pp. 19–20
External links
Quotations related to And Four to Go at Wikiquote