All editions of the Dashiell Hammett Tour book are out-of-print, but cumulatively put thousands of copies on the market. You ought to be able to track one down used.
In 1979, barely two years into conducting the Hammett walk, I self-published a slim saddle-stapled chapbook in red wraps — you can’t say much for it except that it was the true first edition, I counted 313 copies when I got them back from the print shop, and sometime in the 1980s a big-time mystery collector offered me $100 for a file copy, but I resisted. I don’t know that I’ll ever make it to a highly collectable state as a writer, but I’ve got faith in Hammett marginalia. This edition you might not be able to find — but each new incarnation improves on what went before.
In 1982 I did a bigger, better edition, with photos — 2082 copies in the first print run, in gray wraps. In 1984 I did a reprint of 520 copies, same book but the wraps are red.
In 1991 City Lights Books released the third edition of the tour book, thoroughly revised and updated. With the correction of a few typos, a second City Lights printing appeared in 1994. I was never told the print runs on these, but presume a few thousand copies each.
