First edition checker by publisher

Each publishing house had its own habit: a statement such as "First published in 1953" with no later printings listed, a number line that still shows the 1, a date on the title page that matches the copyright page, or nothing at all before a certain decade. Name the publisher and the year and this tool shows the practice we have verified for that house, with the points to check on your copy.

We have written up the houses with the most editions in the catalogue and add more each week. Until yours appears, the number line decoder reads the printing from the copyright page, and the book's own page lists its points where we know them.

No. Many publishers left "First edition" on the copyright page of later printings and recorded the reprint underneath, and some book club editions copied the page exactly. Read the whole page: the statement, the number line and any list of impressions, then the jacket price.

Only when the book was first published in Britain. Many books came out in New York first; the British edition is then the first UK edition, collected in its own right but not the true first. Each book's page says which came first.