2 John Fante first editions are documented on this shelf, from Wait Until Spring, Bandini (1938) to Ask the Dust (1939) across 2 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that John Fante 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 John Fante copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.

Wait Until Spring, Bandini — 1938 · Stackpole SonsTrue first is Stackpole Sons (New York), 1938 — Fante's first book, published with H. L. Mencken's backing; first edition, first printing as identified by multiple ABAA dealers. Issued in green (to blue-green) cloth with the spine stamped/lettered in orange and the front board stamped in blind; octavo, 266 pp; dust jacket priced at the flap. One dealer describes a darker spine with pale lettering, consistent with…. US Stackpole Sons (1938) is the confirmed true first. The census claim of a 'UK Routledge 1939' edition could NOT be corroborated in any dealer listing, library catalog (OpenLibrary), or bibliographic source consulted; no contemporaneous British edition is confirmed (Fante's UK Bandini-novel appearances are later 20th-century reprints, e.g. Black Sparrow/Canongate). Treat Stackpole 1938 as the sole true first…. No book-club or later-issue tells documented in the sources consulted; the 1938 Stackpole sheets are distinguished from Black Sparrow (1983+) reprints by publisher imprint and setting.
Ask the Dust — 1939 · Stackpole Sons, New YorkTrue first: Stackpole Sons, New York, 1939, 235 pp., octavo, bound in publisher's oatmeal canvas cloth stamped at spine and front cover (stamping is described by dealers as brown and as maroon — descriptions of the same binding differ, so do not treat either colour term as a state point). Stackpole stated its later printings on the copyright page: examined copies of the second printing carry a 'Second Printing'…. US Stackpole Sons (New York, 1939) is the true first and the only edition with first-edition standing; the census claim on this point is confirmed. The census further stated 'no UK edition until decades later' — NOT VERIFIED: no British edition, and no date for one, was documented in the sources consulted, so this should be presented as 'no contemporaneous British edition identified' rather than as a positive…. No book-club edition tells for the 1939 Stackpole printing were documented in the sources consulted. The operative discriminators are the absence of a later-printing statement on the copyright page and the first-issue jacket advertising 'Wait Until Spring, Bandini' alone. Black Sparrow trade and signed/limited issues (1980 onward) are distinct books under their own imprint.

More Literary Fiction (US) & Award Winners shelves: John Gardner, John Green, John Grisham, John Hawkes, John Hersey, John Irving.

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