Tom Swift and His Sky Train (FIRST PRINTING OF THE 34TH ORIGINAL TOM SWIFT ADVENTURE, IN ORIGINAL JACKET)

Appleton, Victor (Howard Garis)

Published by Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1931

About this Item

1931 Christmas gift inscription to otherwise blank FFE. We'll grade this handsome first edition in tan "quad panel" front board (with red-and-black devices) "very-good." The "very-good-plus" dust jacket (small chips to corners) is complete with G&D catalog printed to verso in green (lists through only "Big Dirigible" there -- though lists through "Sky Train" to copyright page and front flap.) Jacket verso also lists 3 Nancy Drews through "The Bungalow Mystery" (1930), 19 Hardy Boys through "Great Airport Mystery" (1930), and 12 Ted Scotts to "Through the Air to Alaska" (1930.) Tony Carpentieri in "Hardy & Hardy Investigations" reports G&D switched from printing jacket verso lists in green (as here), to black ink, sometime in 1932. Despite a gray vertical smudge, Tom's portrait to jacket spine (in blue ink) remains wonderfully clear. Glossy frontispiece. Copyright page lists through this title, only. Final page of text lists 33 Swifts through "Big Dirigible" (1930.) Please note that indicates this is an earlier printing than other copies listing 35 titles through "Giant Magnet" (1932) to final page of text, which thus cannot be "first printings" of "Sky Train" (1931.) Additionally, Table of Contents here lists Chapter XXIII -- "The Race" -- twice, omitting Chapter XXII, "Ready To Go." Also, fourth word of the first line of page 3, here, is printed as "Tom," which makes no sense in context -- should be "Ned." Whether these first-printing typos were corrected in later printings, and if so when, we don't know. One would have thought by this time the Stratemeyer daughters could have afforded to have an actual engineer look over their story outlines, but instead this outing finds the young inventor spending all his time working on the "coupler" which will allow a monoplane with a single engine of 1930 vintage to take off towing five (FIVE!) similar-sized gliders in train behind it -- an assemblage which would at least be unlikely to prove very dangerous, since it's unimaginable it would ever actually get off the ground. Also note Tom remains married to "pretty Mary" in this one -- Stratemeyer daughters Harriet Stratemeyer Adams and Edna C. Squier reported readership fell off after this development, and vowed none of their adventure heroes would be allowed to marry, thereafter. This volume totals 218 pp., followed by one page publisher's ad. Reduced from $800.

Seller Inventory # 011775

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Tom Swift and His Sky Train (FIRST PRINTING OF THE 34TH ORIGINAL TOM SWIFT ADVENTURE, IN ORIGINAL JACKET)
• Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap, New York
• Publication Date: 1931
• Language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Illustrations by W.J. Rogers
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Printing: 1st Printing
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
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