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THOROUGH, HUMAN-WRITTEN DESCRIPTION (\'s comically incompetent AI was not used for this or any of my listings).
First edition, first printing, first stateof Seduction of the Innocent by Dr. Fredric Wertham, MD. Original book with ORIGINAL dust jacket and ORIGINAL bibliography!. Published in April,1954.
The classic screed that nearly killed the entire US comic book industry.
The book’s bibliography (pp. 399-400) was torn out by the publisher prior to distribution of MOST first printings, and ALL second printings, of SOTI. This copy has the original bibliography intact! All 16 illustration pages are of course intact as well.
The \"R\" colophon on the publication page is an indicator that this is a first printing.
BOOK CONDITION:The edges of the covers show some aging and handling wear. These issues are clearly evident in the photos.Several pages were previously folded at the corner; although no longer folded, a crease remains. Other than those defects, the book is in great shape, with no highlighting, underlining, marginalia, store stamps or library stamps.
JACKET CONDITION: The dust jacket is price clipped. It has minor tears and soiling, as well as a stray ballpoint pen mark on the back cover, all of which are evident in the photos. The red text on the spine of the jacket a beautiful strong shade of red, which is extremely uncommon on this book because the red ink fades easily when the book is exposed to light (as it would be when stored on a bookshelf). When you buy this book, I will include at no extra charge a reproduction dust jacket, bought from an online store that specializes in such things. The reproduction dust jacket will provide handling and sunlight protection for the authentic original jacket on your book.
I try to make all significant condition issues evident in the photos I take and descriptions I write. Please reach out if something is not clear enough or you\'d like additional photos of something specific.
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE
It may seem hard to believe these days, but back in 1954, many parents considered comic books to be a clear and present danger to America’s youth.That impression was bolstered by the claims in this book, and by the televised United States Senate hearings into dangers of comic books that took place in 1954.
As a result of the anti-comic book efforts of the day, two thirds of comic book publishers went out of business and the industry was neutered for decades by the Comics Code Authority.
BEWARE OF MODERN REPRINTS!There are modern reprints of Seduction of the Innocent, and each modern edition claims to be a “limited edition”, printed with the impossible-to-verify claim that they are from an unnumbered edition of 220 copies.However, these books have been offered constantly for decades now by a major online site that sells books and pretty much everything else. The reprint sometimes goes out of print (it did at least once in 2025 and again in 2026), but the pattern of publication has continued for decades.After an alleged “limited edition” of 220 copies sells out, another “limited edition” of 220 is printed. To me, that seems rather UN-limited.
Included is a photo of the editions of this book that have been published over the years.If you’re buying a copy ofSeduction of the Innocent, I urge you to do some research so that you know what you’re getting.
BUY WITH CONFIDENCE
I have collected items related toSeduction of the Innocentfor decades, andI have sold dozens of copies of varying editions of this book over the years.I have assembled the world’s only collection of all of the comic books referenced in Seduction of the Innocent, and I maintain theSeduction of the Innocentwebsite.I welcome any and all questions related to this listing or to SOTI.
If you have any anti-comics items from 1940-1955, that you\'d like to sell or trade, I\'d love to hear from you.
