Fritz Leiber First Editions

• Night's Black Agents — 1947 · Arkham House, Sauk City, WisconsinL. W. Currey records "no statement of printing" for this book, and Arkham printed it once — 3,084 copies — so an Arkham House, Sauk City, 1947 imprint carrying no impression notice is the first printing. The binding is publisher's black cloth, octavo, collating x + 237 pages, and the jacket is by Ronald Clyne and should be priced at the front flap; a price-clipped flap is common on surviving copies and is a…. Arkham House (Sauk City), 1947, is the true first, and the census is right that this is Leiber's debut collection containing "Smoke Ghost." The census note naming Kaye & Ward as the British publisher is wrong and is corrected here: the first British hardcover is Neville Spearman (Jersey), 1975, ISBN 0-85978-013-9, octavo in boards with jacket art by David L. Fletcher, its text offset from the 1947 Arkham setting.…. No book-club edition of the Arkham volume is documented, and Arkham did not reprint it. The expansions are the real traps: the Berkley paperback of 1978 adds "The Girl with the Hungry Eyes" and "A Bit of the Dark World," and the Gregg Press hardcover of 1980 — sometimes called the definitive version — adds a Richard Gid Powers foreword on top of the Berkley contents. A copy containing either added story is not….
• Conjure Wife — 1952 · TwayneFirst magazine appearance was the April 1943 issue of Unknown Worlds. The first book appearance was in the hardcover anthology Witches Three (Twayne, 1952), where an expanded and revised text led the volume alongside stories by Blish and Pratt. The first standalone book was the Lion Books paperback original of 1953; a standalone hardcover did not follow until the Gregg Press edition of 1977. The 1943 Unknown Worlds serial is the true textual first. The first book appearance is the 1952 Twayne anthology Witches Three (hardcover), not the Lion paperback. The 1953 Lion edition is the first standalone book; the 1977 Gregg hardcover is the first standalone hardcover. No book-club edition applies. Distinguish the fragile 1953 Lion paperback original from later Ace and Berkley reprints, and note that the earliest book form is the 1952 Twayne anthology rather than any standalone.
• Two Sought Adventure — 1957 · Gnome Press, New YorkFull title 'Two Sought Adventure: Exploits of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser'. Gnome Press title #62; copyright registered 15 May 1957; Library of Congress catalog card number 57-7112; 186 pp. About 4,000 copies were bound in all, in three successive bindings taken from the same sheets — so the POINT OF ISSUE IS THE BINDING, not the jacket. First binding: black boards, spine lettered in red (3,000 copies, 1957).…. Census claim confirmed. Gnome Press (New York, 1957) is the true first edition — a US small-press original with no UK predecessor and no foreign-language original, so only the US edition is collected. FIRST-THUS TRAP: the collection was reissued and expanded by Ace Books in 1970 as 'Swords Against Death', dropping the 'Induction' section (that material was reused in the companion volume 'Swords and Deviltry').…. No book-club edition is documented. The reprint tell here is internal rather than external: the gray-cloth (c. 1959) and red-boards (c. 1960) bindings are later issues of the same 1957 sheets, not separate printings — they are the common trap precisely because text block, jacket and imprint are otherwise identical to the first binding. Only black boards lettered in red on the spine represent the first binding.
• The Big Time — 1961 · Ace BooksAce Double D-491, bound dos-a-dos (tete-beche) with Leiber's 'The Mind Spider and Other Stories'; the printed price cover price printed on the cover; Ed Emshwiller cover art. The first Ace printing carries the D-491 catalog code and bears no statement of a later printing. The 1961 Ace Double paperback is the true first book edition (the text was first serialized in Galaxy, March-April 1958). The first hardcover was Gregg Press in 1976 (first thus). The UK Penguin edition (1965) is later. There was no book-club edition. Later forms such as the single (non-Double) Ace G-627 and the Collier/Macmillan trade paperbacks are first-thus reprints, not the original Ace Double D-491.
• The Wanderer — 1964 · Ballantine BooksPaperback original, Ballantine Books U6010, 1964, cover the printed price; text of 318 pages plus final leaf. First printing carries the U6010 code on the spine and cover with no added printing statement on the copyright page; illustrated wrappers with cover art by Bob Abbett and yellow-orange stained edges. The first Hugo Award winner for Best Novel to have appeared neither in hardcover nor in a genre magazine…. The US Ballantine 1964 paperback original is the true first. The first hardcover was Walker (1969), a first thus only. The UK Dobson (1967) hardcover is later. No book club edition of the original paperback; later Ballantine printings add a printing statement or advance a number line. The Walker hardcover is not the first edition.
• Our Lady of Darkness — 1977 · G.P. Putnam's SonsUS Putnam first hardcover, 1977, with a 1977 copyright and no later-printing statement or reprint line. Dealer-confirmed first printings carry the original price on the jacket. World Fantasy Award winner (1978). The US Putnam hardcover is the true first edition. The novel expands Leiber's earlier novella 'The Pale Brown Thing.' An uncorrected proof of the first edition exists and precedes the trade issue. No major book-club edition dominates this title; the principal trap is the later mass-market paperback rather than a BCE. Confirm the Putnam imprint, 1977 date, and a priced jacket.

More Fantasy & Horror shelves: George R.R. Martin, H. P. Lovecraft, H. Rider Haggard, Ira Levin, Jack Ketchum, James Herbert.

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