2 Anne McCaffrey first editions are documented on this shelf, from Dragonflight (1968) to The White Dragon (1978) across 2 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Anne McCaffrey 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 Anne McCaffrey copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.

Dragonflight — 1968 · Ballantine BooksThe census claim holds: the true first of the complete novel is the Ballantine mass-market paperback original of July 1968, catalogue number U6124, 309 pp, in pictorial wrappers — no hardcover precedes it. The first printing states "First Printing: July, 1968" on the copyright page and lists no later printing; there is no number line, and any added printing notice or a later Ballantine number (the second US…. US paperback original (Ballantine, July 1968) is the true first; the hardcovers all follow it. The first UK hardcover is Rapp & Whiting (London), jacket art by Lawrence Edwards — and here the sources conflict: library cataloguing dates it 1969 (Open Library, and the British National Bibliography note carried on the 1970 Corgi reprint reads "Originally published, New York, Ballantine... London, Rapp & Whiting,…. The 1978 Del Rey hardcover with Michael Whelan's cover art is the copy most often mistaken for a first — it is a later edition by any definition, a decade after publication, and is not a first in any sense. The Corgi (London, 1970) paperback and all later Ballantine/Del Rey printings are reprints. Later Ballantine paperback printings retain the U6124-era text but add printing notices to the copyright page. No….
The White Dragon — 1978 · Del Rey / Ballantine Books, New YorkThe first printing states "First Edition: June 1978" on the copyright page with no further printings listed beneath it. Bound in cloth-backed boards — cream/tan paper boards with a blue cloth spine strip lettered in silver. Jacket art by Michael Whelan, depicting Ruth the white dragon. The first edition contains a two-page map of Pern and a seventeen-page "Dragondex" glossary of peoples and terms. Issued in a…. US Del Rey/Ballantine first of June 1978 is the true first of the complete novel, confirming the census claim. The claim that this is the first Pern hardcover original also holds up, but only on the specific sense of "hardcover original": Dragonflight (Ballantine, 1968) and Dragonquest (Ballantine, 1971) were both paperback originals whose hardcovers came later and from other houses (Dragonflight in the UK from…. Book-club printings of the 1978 Del Rey hardcover are the common trap and are told by the absence of the "First Edition: June 1978" line on the copyright page, a blind-stamped device at the lower rear board, no price at the jacket flap, a smaller trim than the trade issue, and noticeably lighter/cheaper boards. Later Del Rey hardcover printings simply add printing statements below the June 1978 line.

More Literary Fiction (US) & Award Winners shelves: Anne Rice, Anne Tyler, Annie Proulx, Anthony Burgess, Anthony Doerr, Anthony Hope.

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