The Age of Innocence by Wharton, Edith - 1920

New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1920. Hardcover Hardcover. Very Good. 365 pages. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Spine slightly faded, a very good, tight copy (lacking the rare dust jacket). *** This is a hard-to-explain copy, with a 1920 date on the title page (changed to 1921 by the fifth printing), but no number indicating the printing on the final page. The text on page 186 has been changed to 'Dearly beloved...' which happened during the second printing. *** One might guess this is a book club edition, but the Book of the Month Club wouldn't be founded for another six years. Appleton published the British edition (and the copyright pages on all copies state both New York and London). So it may be that the copies without printing numbers on the final page were destined for England and were therefore outside of Appleton's printing sequence. *** Your humble cataloguer also considered the possibility that the publisher accidentally omitted the printing number in one the 1920 printings, but all four 1920s printings are definitely known. So, one possibility is that this copy, which is definitely a contemporary printing, was destined for the British market and therefore didnt fit into the regular printing sequence.