Tor is the New York science fiction and fantasy house Tom Doherty launched in 1980, now part of Macmillan. Its first printings are read from the number line: a 1 in the row means a first printing.
Tor is an American science fiction and fantasy publisher founded in 1980 by Tom Doherty, now part of Tor Publishing Group within Macmillan.
Doherty, who had run the Tempo line at Grosset & Dunlap and then Ace Books, set up Tom Doherty Associates in 1979 and launched the Tor imprint on 2 April 1980, with Harriet McDougal and Jim Baen among its first editors. Tom Doherty Associates became a subsidiary of St. Martin's Press in 1987 and so passed into the Holtzbrinck group, which owns Macmillan. The company took the name Tor Publishing Group in 2022, and in June 2019 it moved from the Flatiron Building to the Equitable Building in Manhattan.
Its authors include Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson, and Tor Teen reissues Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game for younger readers. Sanderson's Mistborn: The Final Empire appeared from Tor in July 2006. Tor won the Locus Award for best publisher every year from 1988 to 2024. Its imprints include Forge, Tor Teen, Starscape, Tordotcom, Nightfire and Bramble. Tor UK, a separate British list, is an imprint of Pan Macmillan.
Holding a copy? The first edition checker shows Tor's practice for the year on your title page.
Identification
How to identify Tor first editions
What to look for
Before 1980
The Tor list started in 1980, so a book credited to Tor with an earlier date is a reissue or a misdated record, never a Tor first edition.
1980s to 1990s
Tor is an American trade house, so read the number line on the copyright page: a 1 anywhere in the row normally means a first printing, and the smallest number present gives the printing, whatever order the row runs in.
A "First Edition" statement on its own is not proof, because publishers sometimes forget to remove it from later printings. Check that the 1 is still in the number line.
Watch for American book club copies. A jacket with no price is the commonest sign, and a small blind stamp on the back board points to a book club copy, but a missing price alone does not prove it.
From 2000
The same number line rule applies: a 1 in the row marks the first printing.
Tor in New York and Tor UK in London belong to different Macmillan companies, so an American Tor copy and a British Tor UK copy of one title are separate editions. Find out which came out first before calling either the first edition.
Before 1980 - The Tor list started in 1980, so a book credited to Tor with an earlier date is a reissue or a misdated record, never a Tor first edition. 1980s to 1990s - Tor is an American trade house, so read the number line on the copyright page: a 1 anywhere in the row normally means a first printing, and the smallest number present gives the printing, whatever order the row runs in. - A "First
How many Tor books does MyVolumes track?
We track 358 editions published by Tor, 251 of them first editions, across 356 books.
