We venture to say that no other terminology has caused as much controversy among booksellers and collectors as the first edition. in publishing terms, an edition is technically all the copies of a book that were printed in the same type setting, and the book is only described as a second edition if substantial changes are made to the copy. however, in collecting terms, a very rough description of first edition would be when it is the first appearance of a work in question.
To shed a little more light, the first time a publisher publishes a new book, all copies of that book that are printed without major changes can be considered a first edition. if the initial print run of this first edition sells out and the publisher decides to produce a subsequent printing with the same typesetting, the book would be described as a first edition, second printing. on the other hand, if substantial changes were made to the book after its first printing, perhaps the addition of a chapter or a foreword, then the book would be described as the second edition.
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To make things more confusing, whenever a new publisher publishes an instance of the same title or a book is published in another format, they may also describe their book as a first edition (for example, the first edition of penguin classics or the first paperback edition). it is common to see booksellers describe these later first editions as a “first edition like that”.
Probably now you can understand why there is so much debate about first editions. if there are two or more books described as a first edition, then a collector will want to know which is superior.
Most booksellers and collectors want the “true first edition,” the edition of the book that supersedes all other editions chronologically, and sometimes it takes some detective work to identify the true first edition.
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the confusion surrounding first editions is illustrated in 1984 by george orwell. the hardcover british edition published by secker & warberg in 1949 is considered the true first edition over the american edition printed by harcourt brace in the same year.
However, that first UK edition comes with a red dust jacket and also a green dust jacket, and no one seems to know which was printed first. the general consensus is that the red problem is the real first, but nobody has proof.
identifying a first edition is not easy. there are thousands of publishers and they use a wide variety of often changing methods to define first editions.
The publisher may include the words “first edition” or “first printing” on the copyright page. Another common method of identification is the number line, which is a line of numbers on the copyright page. usually if one is present on the line then it is a first edition. this style has been used since the second world war.
the sequence of lines may ascend or descend or even have no discernible order depending on the editor. all of these sequences below are first editions.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1010 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 11 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 (all first editions)
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sometimes the number line is also accompanied by the words ‘first edition’ but be careful as some publishers leave the words ‘first edition’ even when the book is in its third edition and that fact is reflected in all three on this number line.
first edition3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (third edition)
this number line below identifies a second printing printed in 1975.75 76 77 78 79 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
If you find that the date on the copyright page matches the date on the title page, then it’s probably a first edition. most 19th-century publishers placed the publication date on the title page, but that practice faded after 1900 and the date began to appear on the copyright page.
some publishers make no claims about first editions, but booksellers learn to identify firsts by other methods, for example, a particular copy on the dust jacket or an error in the text of the book that is corrected in later editions .
We recommend getting a guide to the first editions. Bill McBride’s Pocket Guide to Identifying First Editions and Latest Edition Collected Books: Allen and Patricia Ahearn’s Guide to Identification and Values are two excellent resources.
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