3 Primo Levi first editions are documented on this shelf, from If This Is a Man (1947) to The Periodic Table (1984) across 3 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Primo Levi 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.
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- If This Is a Man — 1947 · Francesco De Silva, TurinItalian true first: Se questo è un uomo, Francesco De Silva, Turin, published 11 October 1947 in the series Biblioteca Leone Ginzburg (subtitled "Documenti e studi di storia contemporanea"), directed by Franco Antonicelli. 198 pp.; the cover reproduces a graphically retouched Goya drawing (no. 49 from Álbum C, "La misma", 1808–14). Print run 2,500 copies, of which about 1,500 sold, mostly in Turin. Because there…. The Italian first stands; the sources consulted place the 1959 Orion Press first English edition in New York, and no separate simultaneous London issue is documented among them — cite it as New York rather than "New York/London". Two traps attach to this title. First, the Einaudi edition of 1958 is the revised "definitive" text and is a first thus, not the first edition, despite being the text nearly all later…. No book-club issue of the De Silva 1947 edition is documented; the edition was small and provincial. The documented tells are editorial rather than mechanical: any Einaudi imprint (1958 onward) is the revised text, and any copy titled "Survival in Auschwitz" is a later American issue of the Woolf translation. Later Orion Press and subsequent American printings likewise post-date the 1959 first English edition.
- If This Is a Man (US: Survival in Auschwitz; Se questo è un uomo) — 1947 · Francesco De SilvaTurin: Francesco De Silva, published 11 October 1947 in 2,500 copies, under Franco Antonicelli as publisher and series director (Antonicelli chose the final title). Issued in the series "Biblioteca Leone Ginzburg" — documenti e studi di storia contemporanea — as number 3; the series line is a primary identification point. 198 pp., in publisher's wrappers with a typographic device and titles printed in red to the…. Italian-original precedence: De Silva (Turin), 1947, 2,500 copies. The principal trap is the far commoner Turin: Einaudi, 1958 edition (in the "Saggi" series, first printing of 2,000 copies followed by a second of the same size). Einaudi had rejected the book in 1947; Levi signed with them in 1955 and the text was enriched with new episodes before the 1958 publication. The 1958 Einaudi is therefore a revised and…. No book-club issue is documented for the 1947 De Silva in the sources consulted. The 1961 Collier Books paperback is a mass-market retitling of the same Woolf translation, not a new text, and is a reprint. Later Einaudi issues — Saggi, Super ET, ET Scrittori, the school editions and the omnibus pairing with La tregua — are all reprints or "first thus" repackagings of the 1958 revised text and carry modern ISBNs.….
- The Periodic Table — 1984 · Schocken BooksNew York: Schocken Books, 1984 — the first English-language edition, translated by Raymond Rosenthal. Octavo; blue cloth boards stamped in silver on the spine; the first printing carries the complete number line 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 on the copyright page. Illustrated dust jacket with the printed price present at the front flap; pagination [8], 3-233, [1] pp. Later printings raise the low digit of the number line…. The true first of the work overall is the Italian 'Il sistema periodico' (Turin: Einaudi, 1975). The first edition in English is the US Schocken Books edition of 1984 (trans. Raymond Rosenthal); the UK Michael Joseph edition followed in 1985 — so Schocken, not Michael Joseph, is the first English-language appearance. Do not conflate the 1984 US and 1985 UK years. For the English-language first, the US Schocken 1984 precedes the UK Michael Joseph 1985. No book-club issue is documented as a trap here; the reprint tells are the raised low digit of the number line and added impression statements on later Schocken printings.
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