Mason (A.E.W.) The Witness for the Defence

London, New York, Toronto, Hodder & Stoughton, 1913.

First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth lettered in black to upper cover, spine lettered in gilt. Dust-jacket with inset colour illustration.

An early, rare example of a dust-jacket featuring artwork seemingly solely commissioned for the jacket, rather than repeating a frontispiece or plate from the book. This was an important time of transition for dust-jackets, moving away first from the disposable, purely advertorial type and then those that just repeated an internal design.

Writing in Twentieth-Century Crime and Mystery Writers (London, 1980), Daniel P. King noted “In the mystery genre, [Mason] made ample use of the psychological element – and in doing so, was in advance of his time.”