Title page

SLEEVELESS | ERRAND | A NOVEL | BY | NORAH C. JAMES | PREFACE BY | EDWARD GARNETT | HENRY BABOU AND JACK KAHANE | 1, RUE VERNIQUET, PARIS | 1929

Collation

8vo. [x] 1–217 + [v]. 22 × 14.5 cm. All edges trimmed.

Pagination

[i–ii] blank; [iii] half-title; [iv] edition statement; [v] title-page; [vi] blank; [vii] dictionary quotation; [viii] blank; [ix] disclaimer; [x] blank; [1–3] preface; [4] blank; [5–217] text; [218–219] blank; [220] imprimerie: PRINTED IN PARIS | BY THE | IMPRIMERIE VENDOME, 338 RUE SAINT-HONORE; [221–222] blank.

Binding

Boards, 3/4 rumpled paper effect, white grained cloth spine, in a pictorial dustwrapper.

Front panel: Blank.

Spine: White. SLEEVELESS | ERRAND | BY | NORAH C. JAMES | H. BABOU | & | J. KAHANE | PARIS [black]

Rear panel: Blank.

Wrapper

Front panel: Seated woman, half-empty glass in front of her. Stylised sunlight in yellow. Signed ‘M. Kahane’.

Spine: White.

SLEEVELESS | ERRAND | [drawing of decanter and glass] | NORAH C. JAMES | PREFACE BY | EDWARD GARNETT | 100 Fr. Net [black] | HENRY BABOU | AND | JACK KAHANE | PARIS [black on yellow]

Rear panel: White. Blank.

Front flap: White. Title, author, preface credit. Quotation from Arnold Bennett's review in the Evening Standard.

Rear flap: White. Blank.

Blue-green wraparound band.

SEIZED BY THE LONDON POLICE | THE COMPLETE | AND UNEXPURGATED TEXT | PREFACE BY EDWARD GARNETT

Publication

April 1929

Notes

Since the Scholartis edition was seized on the eve of publication and suppressed following a successful prosecution, strictly speaking it was never published. But the edition was printed up, and a few copies of the book managed to find their way into the hands of copyright libraries and collectors. Those few surviving copies must therefore be regarded as the first edition, and this Babou and Kahane edition as the second.

The dustwrapper is designed by Marcelle Kahane, Jack Kahane's wife.

According to Norah James’ autobiography I Lived in a Democracy, a stage version of Sleeveless Errand was written but never published. Encouraged by Kahane's friend from Manchester, the theatrical producer Basil Dean, James had meetings with both Noël Coward and Tallulah Bankhead. When neither expressed interest, the project was dropped.