Too Many Clients - Publication History

Publication History

• 1960, New York: The Viking Press, October 28, 1960, hardcover

In his limited-edition pamphlet, Collecting Mystery Fiction #10, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Part II, Otto Penzler describes the first edition of Too Many Clients: "Yellow cloth, front cover and spine printed with red; rear cover blank. Issued in a mainly bright pink and yellow dust wrapper."

In April 2006, Firsts: The Book Collector's Magazine estimated that the first edition of Too Many Clients had a value of between $200 and $350. The estimate is for a copy in very good to fine condition in a like dustjacket.

• 1961, New York: Viking (Mystery Guild), February 1961, hardcover

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).

• 1961, London: Collins Crime Club, August 3, 1961, hardcover
• 1962, London, Ontario: Macmillan, 1962, hardcover
• 1962, New York: Bantam #J2334, March 1962, paperback
• 1963, London: Fontana, 1963, paperback
• 1971, New York: The Viking Press, Three Aces: A Nero Wolfe Omnibus (with Might as Well Be Dead and The Final Deduction), May 10, 1971, hardcover
• 1990, New York: Bantam Books ISBN 5-552-55266-0 July 1990, paperback
• 1996, Newport Beach, California: Books on Tape, Inc. ISBN 0-7366-3400-2 May 31, 1996, audio cassette (unabridged, read by Michael Prichard)