2 Alice Munro first editions are documented on this shelf, from Dance of the Happy Shades (1968) to Lives of Girls and Women (1971) across 2 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Alice Munro 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 Alice Munro copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.

Dance of the Happy Shades — 1968 · Ryerson PressRyerson Press, Toronto, 1968 - Munro's debut and first story collection, which won the 1968 Governor General's Award for English-language Fiction. Bound in green cloth boards with gilt spine lettering, issued in a dust jacket, and includes a foreword by Hugh Garner. The 1968 first printing is not reliably identified by an explicit printed 'First Edition' statement; dealers establish it by date and points rather…. Canadian Ryerson 1968 is the true first and quite scarce; the US edition is later. Munro's debut. No club edition; primary risk is a later printing/state or the US edition being mis-described as the first.
Lives of Girls and Women — 1971 · McGraw-Hill RyersonTrue first is the Canadian McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited edition (Toronto; title page also lists Montreal, New York, London), 1971 - Munro's only novel. Bound in cream/white cloth, spine lettered in green, white endpapers, about 254 pages, issued in a dust jacket. The first printing is identified by the date and the number line descending to 1 on the copyright page, not by an explicit printed 'First Edition'…. Munro's only novel; the Canadian McGraw-Hill Ryerson 1971 is the true first, ahead of the 1972 US edition. Scarce in jacket. No book-club edition of note; watch for the later US 1972 printing being offered as a first.

More Literary Fiction (UK & World) shelves: Amos Oz, André Gide, Boris Pasternak, Camilo José Cela (trans. J. M. Cohen with Arturo Barea), Carlos Fuentes (trans. Sam Hileman), Chinua Achebe.

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