Cichlidiot brings up a point. If you collect an author you’d want to collect all editions, not just first editions. Your collection of the author would be worth more, in money and interesting reading.
That gets to different types of collectors:
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Completists typically target a complete run of something, either everything in print by, say, John Steinbeck, or a complete run of a book. Winona Ryder apparently has a first edition of every copy of Catcher in the Rye internationally. Completists who try to run an author’s work were probably more common a few decades ago - now it is more likely you will run into:
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High Spotters - who pick a theme - their favorite genre, time period, prize (e.g., Pulitzer Prizewinners) or just their own whim and collect the “high spots” within their category. So for 20th Century American Lit, a High Spotter would want books like The Great Gatsby, The Sun Also Rises, The Sound and the Fury, The Grapes of Wrath and on and on…
and rjk - of course you’re right that many genre and lit stories have first appeared in magazines, whole or in serial form. Strangely, the book version - especially a hard cover book version - typically has much more value. This is part of understanding the “rules” of book collecting and part of what makes it seem arbitrary to non-collectors. The Life Magazine premier of Hemingway’s “Old Man and the Sea” goes for $75 - $200 now, depending on condition; the hardcover, in first state and in good condition can bring $800 - 2,000 (lots of copies out there so not as pricy as you might expect). The same is true for Dune, Ender’s Game and a bunch of other books.
Also, books typically start off as galley sheets then advanced reading copies - and the rules get really wonky here - sometimes the galleys or ARC’s can be worth more - especially if they galley’s have hand-written corrections from the author or the ARC’s were produced in very small number - but usually, those versions are worth less than the true first hardcover. In this case, it really is about supply and demand - people who collect firsts typically collect hardcovers - collecting galleys and ARCs is specialized, so those versions typically have value to the right person, who is part of a smaller group of collectors…
All these first printed versions are first printed originals and as such have a direct impact on research on the history and/or text of the book.
Salaam. A
I do like seeing the book as the first people who read it saw it. No one knew that this was going to be so popular and enduring, just seeing the exact beginning and thinking about how this must have seemed then.
I have a proof of one of my favorite books, and that I like that too, for other reasons. I was surprised when I got it. I just wanted a copy of the book, any copy.
Well, I’ll admit I have had the pleasure of owning (For a short while) a near mint first edition copy of Larry Niven’s Ringworld.
Unlike many first editions you can’t claim it was a marvel of the printer’s art: It was a paperback issued in the late 60’s, and would not have stood up to heavy use.
However, it has a number of interesting factors. First, Larry Niven is an author who prides himself on taking the time to do his research and avoiding obvious mistakes in his science. This isn’t to say that his stories haven’t been shown to be implausible by later science, but that he avoids things that contradict current scientific knowledge. So, when, in the first edition of this book he had the Earth rotating backwards, it was something of an embarassment. The publisher, once it realized what had happened, issued an immediate recall and destroyed approximately two thirds of the print run of the book. Later editions of the book are different from the first edition also, because the cover art was changed.
Now, I’ll admit, my glee at finding the book was partially because I knew the history of the ‘error’. But more for the fun of finding such a nice copy in the dollar bin at a local used bookstore. I bought it, and did an immediate turn around on eBay at for 100 times what I paid for it. Now, if only I could make that kind of profit more often.
For me, and I suspect for the guy who bought it from me, the appeal was owning a legendary blooper. But, for most modern first editions, I can’t be bothered to work up any interest.
To expand upon what Aldebaran said, the first edition of a text has historical importance because that’s the way the world first encountered the text. This often is a great influence on the response the text received. It also can be said to mark a point in history: reading a text in different times and eras - even those not far apart in standard years - can make a huge difference.
And it should also be said that, most of the time, the first edition is the standard reference edition for future scholarship. One of the things that drives scholars crazy is the need to be able to reference a passage in a text for others to find. The easiest way to do that is to refer back to the first edition. There are times in which the first edition is too scarce or precious to be a point of reference, and so a standard scholarly edition of the text is used, but for most books the first edition is all that is needed.
Only rarely are textual differences or corrections so major that they effect future understanding of the book (except for scholars writing about the history of the work itself). That’s why it’s simultaneously true that historians mark the first edition as the crucial one and it is also the one with the most errors and deviances from the author’s intent.
Chances on errors and deviation from the original concept or intent are to be taken into account if the original manuscript was censored/corrected/re-edited before or during the printing process and for whatever reasons or circumstances by someone else then the author (with or without his knowledge/conscent).
Otherwise - if you can prove that the author himself did this - you have the first edition of one of his originals which then is not the first written by him, yet to be considered as the one with the final approval of the author to be made available in a printed version.
That is an other reason why the other originals and if available their first editions and also the parrallel editions/translations (if they exist) are so important for a historical approach of the text itself, the original intentions behind it, etc…
Salaam. A
What I’m talking about has nothing to do with censorship, but just with the simple mundane realities of publishing.
For centuries, books were typeset off of handwritten manuscripts. Seldom did these come in as “fair” copies, meticulously rewritten for legibility. Some poor typesetter would have to decipher some now-famous scrawls, figure out spellings, insert punctuation, and tidy up the grammar. Sometimes the author got to see the results and make corrections; sometimes not.
Typewriters made things easier, but many authors could not type. And they still couldn’t spell or punctuate.
And always writers would make last minute corrections, additions, deletions, moves, emendations, and every other possible synonym for change in the English vocabulary.
As the publishing industry formalized, a longer and longer list of people got their hands on the manuscript before publication. Editors, assistant editors, copyeditors, fact checkers. There were galley proofs, and unbound proofs, and bound proofs.
And at each and every stage of each and every process, a chance occurred for a mistake, a misreading, a duplication, a dropped line, or a simple typo to creep into the process. And this was and is true even though the classic typographer were the fastest and most accurate typers on Earth.
That’s why books have what are called “points,” minor differences from edition to edition as mistakes are found and corrected.
The more editions, the more chances that the mistakes will be found. That’s why the first editions are farthest from the author’s intent.
Simon Winchester’s book. The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary talks about the fanatic lengths the editors and printers had to go to in order for the OED to come out with as few errors as possible. Yet they are still there, as in every other first edition ever published.
Nothing conspiratorial here, just the perverseness of everyday life.
Of course you can encounter every possible fault that can occur in setting, printing, cutting, binding. In every edition, first or not, old or new and in every possible language. As every sort of fault can occur in handwritten copying.
But that is not what I was talking about at all.
Salaam. A
First editions remind me of the hysteria people sometimes exhibit about the first production example of a car. For example I recently saw that the first 1966 shelby mustang sold for $280,000. A regular shelby mustang will probably sell for around $95,000, but at least with the car you know you have bragging rights. Your car will be unique. With a first edition, no matter how rare, there are usually several thousand of them around. I guess you can impress the easily impressed with this, but how many first editions are printed of say a Stephen King novel? A million?
I don’t collect first editions, but I do have a few, and their major point with me is that they are cool. I have a first edition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and when I read it, I think, Omigod, someone was actually reading this book in the 1850s!
I mean, is that cool, or what?
True Stephen King first editions are always limited-quantity specialty-press high-priced signed, numbered, etc. editions. The million-copy trade edition is for amateurs.
mike1dog - that is why first editions of Stephen King’s later books - meaning those after he got popular and his first printings got huge - will likely never have any real value (assuming Stephen King will even still be collectible in 50 years - very possible, but not guaranteed). There are some notable examples of books that had large first printings - nowhere near 1,000,000 copies, but large - that are starting to get valuable, like For Whom the Bell Tolls (75,000 first printing).
And Eve - that is extremely cool. And if it is in good condition, it could be pretty darn valuable, too! That is why I dig firsts - thinking about who was reading them at the time and stuff like that. I have FDR’s son’s (James Roosevelt was a Congressman himself) copy of The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Think about how he ended up getting a Review Copy of that book and what it meant at the time to have a Congressman and President’s Son to read a book by such a divisive figure…
I admit, I have a weakness for first editions – most of my library (mostly in boxes, sadly) are firsts, many of which are limited/signed editions. I have a lot of modern firsts, and a few older ones. Though I can think of a lot of potential justifications for collecting first editions (investment potential, etc.), in the end my own attraction to them comes down to what Eve said – they’re just cool.
I have a first edition of King’s Danse Macabre, for example. The jacket design is ugly and the book design is nothing special, but I love thinking that other people were reading that book – that particular copy – when I was 5 or 6 years old.
Of course, some of my oldest books aren’t firsts at all, and they’re some of my favorites. I have a small green hardback reprint of Le Morte d’Arthur printed in the first decade of the 20th Century, and a tiny pocket-sized ornate hardback copy of Tennyson’s Idylls of the King even a little older than that. These are some of my favorite volumes.
Speaking for myself, collecting first editions makes for a nice-looking library with a lot of variety. Hardbacks just look better on a shelf, and collecting firsts makes for an interesting mix of old and new. Not to belabor a point, but it’s just cool.
Yes, I am a geek.
Thanks for the replies. I wasn’t expecting this much input!
I’d also like to know how I can find out which edition of a book I have. I have a book that says “First Edition” and another that doesn’t have anything like that on it (yes I checked that page that has the date of publication).
icephoenix - the whole “what is a first edition?” question is what makes collecting an art, not a science. That question is at the core of, but is not the only aspect of, the broader question: Does this book have value?
In terms of identifying first editions - so many factors matter, such as:
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The publisher - different publishers denote their first editions different ways. Many have a “countdown” on the copyright page - the sequence "10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 - and if the one is there, bingo, you have a first. So even if the book says “first edition” on the copyright page, unless the coundown has the “1”, it ain’t a first (Cold Mountain has this issue). But there are countless variations - Random House’s countdown only goes down to “2” with the words “first edition” denoting a true first, Viking has nothing on the cp page to denote a first and only notes subsquent printings. There are whole books published about how each publisher identifies their firsts. If anyone tells you there is an easy answer, run from them. Immediately.
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Particular books - so even if the publisher has a standard way to denote a first, it can vary on a specific title. Why, oh why, did Harper & Row on their first US edition of 100 Years of Solitude put the countdown on a last page in the back (oh, and by the way, if it does have the countdown down to “1” back there - its NOT a true first - true firsts have no countdown at all!! I know - hunh?!). Some individual titles are legendary for the weirdness of what makes them a true first.
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Points - are there specific issues that make a subset of the first edition more valuable - could be a mistake corrected during the printing of a first edition, a change in materials used, etc…a “first edition/first state” can have much more value than a “first edition/second state”. I think for the 3rd Harry Potter book, the copyright page lists the author as “Joanne K. Rowling” in the first state, but after this was caught and corrected, it is the expected “J.K.” and the 1st/1st is worth a few times more than the 1st/2nd.
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True Firsts - okay, you have a first edition, for sure, and let’s say its the first state. Ah, but is it the true first? Or a better way to ask - is it the most collected/collectible? Was there a signed-limited edition? Was that book published first in another country - sometimes this matters (if the author is from that country, some collectors “follow the flag” and want the book from the author’s native country - but of course sometimes that doesn’t matter). Then there’s whole softcover vs. hardcover thing.
It’s a little complex. 
What book are you asking about?
Many used and rare bookstores sell a little pamphlet called A Pocket Guide to the Identification of First Editions, by Bill McBride. It lists hundreds of publishers and their idiosyncratic method of denoting first editions. It’s just a rough and ready tool to eliminate obvious later editions, though. If you’re a serious collector you need to get into points, bindings, dust jackets, and the other million variants. But if you’re just looking at a five dollar book and wondering whether to pick it up or not, it’s an invaluable tool.