FIRST EDITION
A-Y

(also, the copyright dates are shown as 1948, 1949 with the 1948 blacked out)

Dustjacket is grey (not olive).
Book is maroon (not bright red) with gold lettering on spine.

The US edition was published at least one week before the UK edition (see Greene, pg. 314).

There are a few interesting points with the first US edition. It seems that the majority of these books that are catalogued as first editions are  price-clipped. All of the copies that I have seen that are price-clipped (and being sold as first editions) also had the dreaded blind stamp on the rear board at the bottom right (indicating a book club edition). The blind stamp is quite small and easily overlooked. What is unusual is that in every other respect the book appears to be a first edition and includes the Harpers FIRST EDITION slug with the proper two letter date code. The few copies that I have seen that are not price-clipped do not have the blind stamp. Although I have no concrete evidence I suspect that Harpers sold a number of their first edition copies to a book club and at some point in the process a blind stamp was added and the jacket price-clipped.

Beware of  first edition books with later printing jackets. I've seen a jacket that was from a later printing that looks almost identical to the first printing jacket. This jacket had a different price ($4.95) and the statement "JACKET DESIGN BY THE ROGER STUDIOS" was on the back flap whereas the first printing jacket has it on the front flap. The jacket was also olive in color. Unless looked at closely the two jacket look identical. I don't know if all later printings have these characteristics but  if you see these characteristics then you know the jacket is not from the first edition.