Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group is a publisher active from 2009. We track 47 editions it published between 2009 and 2025, 40 of them first editions across 47 books. How Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group marked its first editions is set out below, with a checker for the year on your title page.
About Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group is a New York division of Penguin Random House, formed in late 2008 and early 2009 when Doubleday was merged with the Knopf Publishing Group.
It joins two old American houses. Alfred A. Knopf was founded in New York in 1915 by Alfred A. Knopf and Blanche Knopf, who designed its borzoi colophon in 1925. Knopf published Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet in 1923 and a long run of Nobel laureates, among them Albert Camus, Gabriel García Márquez, Toni Morrison, Orhan Pamuk, Doris Lessing, Alice Munro and Kazuo Ishiguro. Random House bought Knopf in 1960. Its editors in chief have included Robert Gottlieb and Sonny Mehta, who died in 2019.
Doubleday began in 1897 as Doubleday & McClure, founded by Frank Nelson Doubleday and S. S. McClure, and traded as Doubleday, Page & Co. and, after its 1927 merger with George H. Doran, Doubleday, Doran before becoming Doubleday & Company in 1946. It moved to Garden City, New York, in 1910, was the largest publisher in the United States by 1947, and published Stephen King's early novels, Dan Brown and John Grisham. Nelson Doubleday Jr. sold it to Bertelsmann in 1986; from 1988 parts of it formed Bantam Doubleday Dell, which became a division of Random House in 1998.
Both houses now sit within Penguin Random House, owned by Bertelsmann.
Holding a copy? The first edition checker shows Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group's practice for the year on your title page.
Identification
How to identify Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group first editions
What to look for
Knopf
From 1933 to 1934 onwards Knopf has printed "First Edition" on the copyright page of its first printings.
Before 1933 to 1934, Knopf did not label the first printing as such but noted each later printing on the copyright page, so an early Knopf copy with no printing note is a candidate first.
A copy stating "First and second printings before publication" is a second printing.
Doubleday
Doubleday (as Doubleday, Doran and then Doubleday & Company) prints "First Edition" on the copyright page of a first printing.
Doubleday books of the 1970s and early 1980s also carry a small printer's code near the inner margin at the foot of a page near the end, such as T39 on page 823 of The Stand (1978); a first printing must carry the code recorded for it.
Number lines
Where a number line appears, the lowest number shows the printing, so a line that includes 1 marks a first printing.
Book club editions
A jacket with no price on the front flap is the commonest sign of a book club edition.
Many book club copies also carry a small blind stamp (an uninked dot or shape) at the lower corner of the back board.
Book club copies are often smaller than the trade edition.
Book club copies also carry codes printed near the gutter on a back page, so on a Doubleday title a gutter code alone does not prove a trade first; check the jacket price as well.
How do I identify a Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group first edition?
Knopf From 1933 to 1934 onwards Knopf has printed "First Edition" on the copyright page of its first printings. Before 1933 to 1934, Knopf did not label the first printing as such but noted each later printing on the copyright page, so an early Knopf copy with no printing note is a candidate first. A copy stating "First and second printings before publication" is a second printing. Doubleday Doubl
How many Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group books does MyVolumes track?
We track 47 editions published by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 40 of them first editions, across 47 books.
Sources
Where these facts come from
First Edition Identification by Publisher (Allen and Patricia Ahearn), ILAB (ilab.org)
How to Identify First Editions from Alfred A. Knopf, Books Tell You Why, 2013 (blog.bookstellyouwhy.com)
Identifying first editions (updated 2024), StephenKing.com (stephenking.com)
