The given day : an Amsterdam mystery.

Kuala Lumpur : Art Printing Works, 1964. First edition. Octavo, pictorial wrappers (canted, lightly marked, glue marks to gutters of endpapers); pp. 132, with illustrations by the author; a very good copy (without the production fault found in other copies on pp.21-30).

Robert van Gulik (1910-1967) was a Dutch orientalist, diplomat, musician, and writer. He is now best known for his fiction writing, most notably his Judge Dee mysteries, which are loosely based on the historical figure Di Renjie, a court magistrate and statesman of the Tang dynasty.

The given day was published in an edition of only 2000 copies. It is a murder-mystery story set in Amsterdam in the hours of 28-29 February, in which the destinies of several complete strangers from different parts of the world become entangled.