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. A 'UK Routledge 1939' edition is not 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 pending evidence of any UK issue. 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. No contemporaneous British edition is identified in the sources consulted. The 1980 Black Sparrow Press reissue (Santa Barbara), with the Charles Bukowski preface, is the edition that returned the book to print and is 'first thus' only — it is frequently mis-offered as a first and is the single most common trap…. 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.

← All authors · All genres · part of the First-Edition Identification resource.