2 John Kennedy Toole first editions are documented on this shelf, from A Confederacy of Dunces (1980) to The Neon Bible (1989) across 2 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that John Kennedy Toole 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 Kennedy Toole copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.

A Confederacy of Dunces — 1980 · Louisiana State University PressUS LSU Press 1980 is the true first edition. LSU Press imprint; "1980" on the title page; the copyright page states no additional printings (later printings add a printing statement). Foreword by Walker Percy. The first printing was small, approximately 2,500 copies. Original dust jacket with its printed price on the front flap. Bound in publisher's tan cloth, lettered in black on the spine; about 338 pp. Awarded…. US LSU Press is the true first; UK Allen Lane (1981) is later. The small first printing makes genuine firsts scarce; later LSU printings add printing statements. No contemporaneous book-club edition; later printings carry printing notices on the copyright page and lack the first-printing configuration.
The Neon Bible — 1989 · Grove WeidenfeldTrue first edition: Grove Weidenfeld, New York, 1989 (issued May 1989) — the posthumous publication of the novel Toole wrote in 1954, with an introduction by W. Kenneth Holditch. Hardcover, xi + 162 pp.; the first printing states 'First Edition' with a full number line descending to 1 on the copyright page. The imprint is recorded by some dealers simply as 'Grove Press,' the parent house then trading as Grove…. US Grove Weidenfeld (New York), 1989 is the true first and precedes the UK. UK edition: Viking, London (ISBN 0-670-82908-0), issued after the US. The book completes the two-book Toole canon alongside A Confederacy of Dunces. Book-club and same-year softcover issues exist (Open Library records a paperback book-club issue, and Grove Weidenfeld released a softcover the same year); neither is the true first hardcover. Verify the number line to 1 on the copyright page.

More Literary Fiction (US) & Award Winners shelves: John M. Ford, John McGahern, John O'Hara, John P. Marquand, John Steinbeck, John Updike.

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