2 Flann O'Brien first editions are documented on this shelf, from At Swim-Two-Birds (1939) to The Third Policeman (1967) across 2 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Flann O'Brien 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 Flann O'Brien copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.

At Swim-Two-Birds — 1939 · Longmans, Green & Co.First published by Longmans, Green & Co., London, on 13 March 1939, the author's debut novel. The first issue is bound in publisher's black cloth with the spine lettered in gilt and a green top-stain; the scarce first-issue jacket carries a Graham Greene endorsement on the rear panel and the price present at the flap. A second issue exists, bound up by Longmans in grey cloth from unbound sheets of the same 1939…. Longmans, Green & Co. (London), 1939, is the true first and the only appearance under this imprint in the author's lifetime. Pantheon Books (New York) issued the first American edition in 1951, and it is a genuine trap: the Pantheon copyright page states only 'First published 1939' and carries no American date, so it is regularly mistaken for the London first. The Pantheon issue is identified instead by its…. No book-club edition of the 1939 Longmans printing is documented in the sources consulted. The grey-cloth second issue is a publisher's rebinding of surviving first-printing sheets — not a club or reprint edition — and is collected in its own right. The principal reprint tell for this title remains the 1951 Pantheon American issue, whose '1939' copyright line misleads.
The Third Policeman — 1967 · MacGibbon & KeePublished posthumously by MacGibbon & Kee, London, in 1967; the novel was written in 1939-40 and withheld by the author, who died in 1966. The first printing is an octavo of 200 pages in brown boards with the spine lettered in gilt — note that catalogues conflict on the material, Second Story Books describing dark brown cloth boards and Ulysses Rare Books brown paper boards, so the boards material should not be…. MacGibbon & Kee (London), 1967, is the accepted true first; Walker and Co. (New York) issued the first American edition, also dated 1967, and both are collected. The two are easily confused because the Walker issue is likewise in brown paper-covered boards with gilt spine lettering — the reliable separators are the imprint and the jacket, the Walker jacket being pictorial with artwork credited to John Farman,…. No book-club or reprint issue of the 1967 MacGibbon & Kee printing is documented in the sources consulted. The chief hazard for this title is not a club edition but the same-year Walker American issue being offered simply as a '1967 first edition'; confirm the imprint on the title page and spine before accepting a copy as the London first.

More Literary Fiction (US) & Award Winners shelves: Flannery O'Connor, Frank Norris, Frank R. Stockton, Franz Kafka, Frederick Forsyth, Frederick Marryat.

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