New York: Harrison Smith and Robert Haas, 1933

8vo, pp. 297. Original yellow boards, lettered in red to front panel and spine. Illustrated dust jacket. Top edge red, leading edge uncut. Cloth to spine a little mottled, but a very good copy in a very good dust jacket with a little light edgewear, most noticeable at head of spine.

First edition, second printing, price-clipped and with new price to front flap.

Hendrik de Leeuw [1891-1977] was born in Holland but moved to the US in 1912, becoming a citizen in 1923. He travelled extensively in his job as a representative for Firestone tyres, and wrote the Crossroads series of travel books, beginning with Crossroads of the Java Sea in 1931. Cities of Sin is a straight-faced survey of the sex and opium trade of the Far East; the fabulously lurid dust jacket design suggests the book's publishers were interested in attracting more than just an academic readership.

Extremely scarce: WorldCat shows no copy of the first edition -- first or second printing -- in any institution.