2 Colin Dexter first editions are documented on this shelf, from Last Bus to Woodstock (1975) to The Way Through the Woods (1992). Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Colin Dexter 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 Colin Dexter copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.

Last Bus to Woodstock — 1975 · MacmillanFirst UK printing: London, Macmillan, 1975 — orange-brown boards with titles in black on the spine and cream endpapers, octavo, in the unclipped jacket with the publisher's printed price present at the front flap. No distinctive copyright-page statement is documented for the first printing; identification rests on the Macmillan 1975 imprint, the binding, and the priced jacket. Macmillan used poor paper stock for…. London: Macmillan, 1975 is the true first edition. The first American edition (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1975) followed the same year and is collected separately as the first US printing of the first Inspector Morse novel. No book-club points are documented in the sources consulted. Many surviving copies circulated through public library systems — check for library stamps, cancels, pockets, and rebound ex-library copies, which are common for this title.
The Way Through the Woods — 1992 · MacmillanUK Macmillan first edition, London, 1992, with the statement First published 1992 and a full number line descending to 1. The tenth Inspector Morse novel; it won the CWA Gold Dagger for 1992. A copy whose number line does not include 1 is a later printing. UK Macmillan 1992 is the true first; the US Crown edition of 1992 to 1993 is a first-thus. BCA and other book-club editions, and any printing whose number line does not end in 1, are not the true first.

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