3 Edward O. Wilson first editions are documented on this shelf, from Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975) to The Diversity of Life (1992) across 2 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Edward O. Wilson 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 Edward O. Wilson copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.
- Sociobiology: The New Synthesis — 1975 · Belknap Press of Harvard University PressLarge oblong quarto; cloth boards; profusely illustrated with line drawings by Sarah Landry and halftones; 697pp; copyright page shows 1975 with no later-printing statement; first-state jacket retains its price. Notable for the controversial final chapter applying sociobiology to human behavior. US Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (Cambridge) 1975 is the true first edition. The 1980 abridged edition and the 2000 twenty-fifth-anniversary edition are separate, later issues. No significant book-club issue; reprints are identified by added printing statements on the copyright page.
- On Human Nature — 1978 · Harvard University PressHarvard University Press (Cambridge, Massachusetts) first edition, first printing, 1978, in octavo. Bound in brown cloth with gilt lettering on the spine, with decorated endpapers and pastedowns. The copyright page carries no statement of a later or additional printing; later printings add a printing statement, so a clean copyright page is the key first-printing point. The first-state dust jacket should retain…. US Harvard University Press (Cambridge) 1978 is the true first edition, first printing. The work won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 1979. Confirm a first printing by the absence of any later-printing statement on the copyright page. Later printings add a printing statement to the copyright page; verify it is clean. A revised edition with a new preface followed decades later (2004) and is a distinct, later text, not the first edition.
- The Diversity of Life — 1992 · Belknap Press of Harvard University PressQuarter black cloth over brown cloth boards, gilt spine lettering; 424pp; illustrated with color plates plus full-page and in-text black-and-white drawings and photographs; first printing with no later-printing statement on the copyright page; first-state jacket retains its price. US Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (Cambridge) 1992 is the true first edition (ISBN 0-674-21298-3). The W. W. Norton paperback is a later, separate issue. Verify the copyright page for added printing statements to confirm a first printing.
More Nonfiction & Memoir shelves: Erik Larson, Frederick Douglass, Frederick Law Olmsted, Galileo Galilei, Gordon S. Wood, Hannah Arendt.
← All authors · All genres · part of the First-Edition Identification resource.