Warner Books, New York, 1970 to 2007, now Grand Central Publishing at Hachette. Firsts from the 1980s state "First Printing" with month and year above a number line that must include 1.
Warner Books is a publisher based in New York City, founded in 2006. We track 257 editions it published between 1726 and 2007, 160 of them first editions across 252 books. How Warner Books marked its first editions is set out below, with a checker for the year on your title page.
About Warner Books
Warner Books was a New York publisher of mass-market paperbacks and trade books. It began in 1970, when Kinney National Company, which took the name Warner Communications in 1972, bought the New York paperback house Paperback Library and turned it into Warner Books. In 2007 it was renamed Grand Central Publishing, now part of Hachette Book Group.
In 1996 Time Warner brought its book businesses together in one group, later known as the Time Warner Book Group. Warner's biggest success was Robert James Waller's The Bridges of Madison County (1992), which stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for 164 weeks in a row.
Hachette Livre, part of Lagardère, bought the Time Warner Book Group on 31 March 2006, and its North American arm became Hachette Book Group. Soon afterwards the Warner Books name was retired in favour of Grand Central Publishing, chosen partly because the new offices were close to Grand Central Terminal. Its romance list continued as Forever and its mass-market list as Vision, and the small literary imprint Twelve, led by Jonathan Karp, was launched in 2007.
Holding a copy? The first edition checker shows Warner Books's practice for the year on your title page.
Identification
How to identify Warner Books first editions
What to look for
Warner grew out of a paperback reprint house and published both paperbacks and hardbacks. A paperback that follows a hardback is at most a first paperback printing, not a true first, so check whether a hardback came first. A US book club copy can usually be told from the trade edition by several signs: a jacket with no price, a small blind stamp (often a dot) pressed into the lower back board, and a smaller, more cheaply made book. A few Book of the Month Club jackets of the 1970s did show a price on the front flap, so check the other signs too.
1970s
1980s to 2006
Warner first printings state "First Printing" with the month and year on the copyright page, directly above a number line.
The number line must still contain 1: the lowest number showing is the printing.
Examples of the pattern: Word of Honor (1985), Scarlett (1991), Business @ the Speed of Thought (1999) and Shoot the Moon (2004).
From 2007
New books from 2007 on carry the Grand Central Publishing name, so a copy labelled Warner Books predates the change. The number line rule still applies.
Warner grew out of a paperback reprint house and published both paperbacks and hardbacks. A paperback that follows a hardback is at most a first paperback printing, not a true first, so check whether a hardback came first. A US book club copy can usually be told from the trade edition by several signs: a jacket with no price, a small blind stamp (often a dot) pressed into the lower back board, and
How many Warner Books books does MyVolumes track?
We track 257 editions published by Warner Books, 160 of them first editions, across 252 books.
