2 Alan Sillitoe first editions are documented on this shelf, from Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1958) to The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner (1959) across 2 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Alan Sillitoe title from later printings and book-club copies — the publisher and year to expect, the number-line or edition-statement conventions, and the tells that show up in online listings.
Identification only, per the house rule: no prices and no appraisals here. Checking a Alan Sillitoe copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.
- Saturday Night and Sunday Morning — 1958 · W. H. AllenFirst edition, first impression: W. H. Allen, London, 1958. Bound in the publisher's red boards (described by dealers as red buckram) with the spine lettered in gilt. The dust wrapper was designed by Mona Moore and is printed in green, black and red, depicting Arthur Seaton and Doreen; on unclipped copies the price is present at the flap, printed in bold red lettering. Binding colour, gilt spine lettering and the…. True first is W. H. Allen, London, 1958 — the census claim is confirmed. This was Sillitoe's first novel and won the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award for 1958. The first American edition is Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1959 (239 pp.), issued in a priced jacket with the price at the flap; it is collected as the American first but follows the London edition. Both are collected; the W. H. Allen 1958 has precedence. No book-club issue of the W. H. Allen first was corroborated against two independent sources in this pass, and none is asserted. The 1960 film adaptation drove later hardcover printings and paperback issues; all carry their own imprints on the title page and are not the first. The 1964 stage adaptation likewise generated later text issues that are 'first thus' at best.
- The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner — 1959 · W.H. AllenFirst edition, first impression published by W.H. Allen, London, 1959 (Crown 8vo, 176 pp.), in the publisher's grey cloth-grained boards with the spine lettered in silver; issued in a pictorial dust jacket illustrated by Mona Moore, priced at the front flap (many surviving jackets are price-clipped). This is Sillitoe's SECOND book — his first story collection — following the novel Saturday Night and Sunday…. W.H. Allen (London) 1959 is the true first; the Alfred A. Knopf (New York) 1960 edition is the first American, published roughly a year later (jacket priced at the flap). Both are collected; London has priority. First printing carries no later-impression notice. Later W.H. Allen impressions and Pan/paperback issues are reprints, and the Knopf 1960 is a distinct first American — not the first edition overall.
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