Identification points are listed only where two independent sources agree. Last reviewed 11 Nov 2026.
Buy a copy: eBay
No sales recorded yet
We value a printing from verified sales of that exact printing, and none of the first impression has come to auction in our records so far. The chart and the value by condition appear here as soon as one does.
Pro members with this book on their wantlist are emailed when it sells under their price.
The true first is the Harper & Brothers edition, New York, 1945; the first British edition is the Gollancz hardback of 194 pages, bound in green cloth with gilt spine lettering and issued in a dust jacket. Catalogue records disagree on its date: Library of Congress and Talis records give 1945, but the Internet Archive scan of a Gollancz copy is dated 1946 and a dealer copy described as the Gollancz first edition is also dated 1946. Check the verso for a later impression line. A Readers Union book club edition followed in London in 1947 and is not the first. Any copy with a New York imprint is the American edition.
An older Gollancz first edition is identified by what is missing: later impressions are recorded on the back of the title page, so a copy with no impression line under its first-publication date is the first.
Allen and Patricia Ahearn's publisher list for ILAB says Gollancz made no first edition statement but noted subsequent printings, in the form "First published (year)" followed by "Second impression (year)". Dealers' listings show the same pattern. Two separate sellers of the 1948 reprint of Dilwyn Rees's The Cambridge Murders quote "Second impression (first cheap edition) January 1948" on the verso, one adding that "First published October 1945" is also stated, while the 1945 printing is offered simply as the first edition.
Read the full guide to Gollancz first editions, decade by decade, and check your copy's copyright page against it. Our number line decoder reads the printing from the row of numbers.
We have not yet confirmed the issue points that tell this first impression from later ones. Until we do, compare your copy's title page and copyright page with the publisher, place and year above: any later printing or edition statement means it is not this one.
Know the points? Tell us. We publish them, with credit, once a second source agrees.
Gollancz, London, in 1946, in hardback.
Points of issue are listed only where at least two independent sources agree. Last reviewed 11 November 2026. Reviewed by Harriet Ellis; read how we check facts.
For most books published since the 1920s, the original dust jacket carries a large share of the value, often most …
Read the guide →7 min readTo identify a first edition, check that your copy is the first printing of the first edition. Read the copyright …
Read the guide →6 min readBook condition grading uses a six-step trade scale: Fine, Near Fine, Very Good, Good, Fair and Poor. Collectors grade the …
Read the guide →