Identification points are listed only where two independent sources agree. Last reviewed 3 Nov 2026.
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The Gilded Bat first appeared in New York from Simon and Schuster in 1966, having been serialised in Ballet Review. The first British edition is the Jonathan Cape hardback, London, 1967, an unpaginated book of about 63 pages; Cape's editorial file on it, including letters from Simon and Schuster, is held in the Cape archive at the University of Reading. A Gorey checklist records that the Cape copyright page states first publication in Great Britain in 1967. The American first states First Printing on its copyright page and has a pictorial jacket with La Chauve-Souris Doree across the top; it is the true first, not the British edition.
A Jonathan Cape first impression carries "First published" with the year on the back of the title page and nothing else, because Cape recorded every later impression in the same place.
Read the full guide to Jonathan Cape 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.
Jonathan Cape, London, in 1967, in hardback.
Points of issue are listed only where at least two independent sources agree. Last reviewed 3 November 2026. Reviewed by Harriet Ellis; read how we check facts.
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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 →