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I like to read the small print in the front of books, the publishing details and dedications. It’s amazing what you find.
I have a copy of What Mad Universe by Fredric Brown, published by Bantam in 1978. In the front it says:
This low-priced Bantam book has been completely reset in a typeface designed for easy reading and was printed from new plates. It contains the complete text of the original hard cover edition.
NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED.
(capitals in the original). Now, I also possess the first edition paperback of this novel published in the States by Bantam again in 1950, and the British hardback published by Boardmans in 1951. Both of these latter two mention Idlewild airport. The 1978 edition updates things a bit and gives the airport its present day name of Kennedy. Therefore the one word Idlewild has been omitted and maybe I could sue the publishers under the Trades Description Act?
But some bits of small print are more cryptic. What would you make of
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
on the bottom of the page of publishing details? It actually means that this is a first edition, the number on the extreme left corresponding to the edition. Unless, that is, the book is published by Elsevier/Nelson in which case one more number is added and the sequence is reversed:
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
and the edition is the rightmost number.
Harper and Row include date codes:
80 81 82 83 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The left most number is the year of the printing and the right most number is the edition.
When a book goes into subsequent printings, numbers corresponding to previous printings are dropped. Thus in the above systems, a second edition might read:
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
81 82 83 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
except that sometimes as a number is dropped off the left (or right) another is added on the right (or left):
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
There is another complication. Often a book is published simultaneously in the USA and Canada. Both publications are first editions and will be numbered (say)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
However some publishers (particularly DAW) count this as two separate printings of the edition and when the second USA printing is published it is considered to be the third actual printing and is numbered
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
and bibliophilic completists go nuts trying to find the non-existent
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
So much for crypticism. What else is in the small print?
Titles often change between printings and this too can often be found buried here. For instance, I have the 1976 Arrow paperback of Chronicules by D. G. Compton which informs me that the hardback was published in 1971 by Michael Joseph and was called Hot Wireless Sets, Aspirin Tablets, the Sandpaper sides of used Matchboxes and Something that might have been Castor Oil. Presumably they couldn’t fit that on to the spine of a paperback. Kronk by Edmund Cooper was originally Son of Kronk. All that is fairly harmless, but sometimes the information hides something a bit more tricky. For instance I have on my shelves a dozen or so books by John Brunner which have statements to the effect that “…a shorter version of this book appeared under the title…”. In other words, Brunner is putting a lot of his earlier works through the typewriter a second time and republishing them under a new title. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Second thoughts are often better. But be careful. Be sure you know what you are buying. You may already have it.
Following the printing details is often a dedication. And these too can be rich sources of information.
In Breakfast in the Ruins by Michael Moorcock, one James Colvin writes that: “Michael Moorcock died of lung cancer, aged 31, in Birmingham last year”. Interesting information, if untrue. Why was this done? The reasons go back to the 1960s when Moorcock was editing the avant garde magazine New Worlds. James Colvin was the pseudonym that Moorcock used to write book reviews and the occasional short story. Eventually Moorcock tired of him and New Worlds published Colvin’s obituary in issue 197, January 1970. Colvin, it appeared, died when a filing cabinet full of manuscripts fell over on top of him. The obituary was signed William Barclay—another of Moorcock’s pseudonyms.
And so the wheel comes full circle.
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