Black Plumes by Margery Allingham - hot 1940 Doubleday Doran

Black Plumes by Margery Allingham, published by Doubleday Doran, 1940.

This hardcover edition is beyond delicious. Usually, I will describe a book as having a tight binding and pages that are intact and leave it at that. This copy of Margery Allingham's rare stand-alone mystery has those traits. The pages are clean and crisp. What makes this book so special is the spine. The veiled green gothic/deco skeleton that extends a bony hand on the spine and in a woodblock print on hot the inside is spectacular. It looms out of your shelf beckoning you to enter the mystery. Truly a very special copy of an already special novel.