How do you know if a book is a first edition?

missladyannie

Hi everyone, is there an easy/obvious way to see if a book is a first edition please?

many thanks

sharpy2010

Just a guess, but would it say on the inside cover "first edition"? This isn't supposed to be sarcasm - I do remember seeing this on some books.

TAG

I think the numbers next to the published date always run - 12345678910

Later editions have numbers looking like 13579108642 etc etc.

Hopefully someone more in the know will be along in a minute and either confirm or shoot me down for being wrong!

lofielectronic

There are a couple of ways its shown generally, as stated above, theres a good article on it here http://www.booksellerworld.com/identify-firsteditions.htm

Crowqueen

A first edition will have a single, centred number 1 where the numbers TAG talks about are.

I don't know about older books but that is usually the case with newer publications.

missladyannie

Thanks everyone, I googled it as well and saw some advice about looking for a line of numbers but my book doesnt have numbers inside it, it says First Published 1998.

In other books I have noticed for example First Published 2000, this edition 2002 etc.