2 Ian Rankin first editions are documented on this shelf, from The Flood (1986) to Knots and Crosses (1987) across 2 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Ian Rankin 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 Ian Rankin copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.

The Flood — 1986 · PolygonPolygon issued the first edition in two simultaneous states, and both are the first edition, first impression: a hardback in publisher's red boards with a dust jacket illustrated by Kerry Kirkwood, and a paperback in printed wrappers issued with no jacket. The hardback is the scarcer and collector-preferred issue and is described by dealers as elusive; the wrappered issue is explicitly catalogued as "first…. UK Polygon (Edinburgh, 1986) is the true first and the only 1986 edition — Rankin's genuinely rare pre-Rebus debut — and the census claim is confirmed. There is no US first of this date and no original-language issue other than the Scottish one, so no UK-vs-US precedence question arises. The dominant trap is the 2005 Orion (London) hardback reissue, which is a first-thus and is regularly mis-listed as a first: it…. No book-club edition of the 1986 Polygon issue is documented in the sources consulted. The reprint tells that matter on this title are the later trade reissues, not a club: chiefly the 2005 Orion hardback (new introduction, black cloth, silver spine lettering, different pagination) and the Orion/Time Warner paperbacks that follow it. Any copy lacking the Polygon Edinburgh 1986 imprint is not the first, whatever….
Knots and Crosses — 1987 · The Bodley HeadFirst printing: London, The Bodley Head, published 19 March 1987, with 'First Published 1987' on the copyright page and no later-printing notice (ISBN 0-370-31057-8). Red cloth binding, octavo, [6],169 pp., in the first-issue unclipped jacket with the publisher's printed price at the front flap; the jacket art shows a noughts-and-crosses game played with knotted twine and matchstick crosses. The print run was…. London: The Bodley Head, 19 March 1987 is the true first edition. The first American edition (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1987, published August 1987) followed and is collected separately as the first US printing of the first Inspector Rebus novel. No book-club issue is documented. The dominant later-issue hazard is ex-library stock: inspect for cancelled library stamps, rebinding, and jacket cropping, all frequently seen on surviving first printings.

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