Identification points are listed only where two independent sources agree. Last reviewed 3 Nov 2026.
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St. Martin's Press published the novel in New York in 1987 (ISBN 0-312-01058-3). The first UK edition is the New English Library hardback, which the British Library records as published at Sevenoaks in 1988 with a 1987 copyright date, 509 pages, ISBN 0-450-42461-8; the same record also lists a second ISBN, 0-450-48778-4. Booksellers often list the 0-450-42461-8 hardback under Hodder & Stoughton or Coronet, the group NEL belonged to, so go by the title page. The Coronet paperback of 1989 (ISBN 0-340-49181-7, 671 pages) and later Coronet and Hodder reissues are not firsts; the 2005 Hodder reissue states it was first published at Sevenoaks by New English Library in 1988. Wikipedia gives Coronet, 1987 as the UK publisher, which the British Library and Open Library edition records do not support.
NEL grew out of two paperback firms and later ran as a mass-market imprint, so many NEL books are paperbacks. Where a work first appeared abroad, an NEL copy is at best the first British edition, so check where and when the work was first published.
Read the full guide to New English Library 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.
New English Library, Sevenoaks, in 1988, 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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