24 Sam Shepard first editions are documented on this shelf, from Five Plays (Chicago; Icarus's Mother; etc.) (1967) to The One Inside (novel) (2017) across 13 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Sam Shepard 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 Sam Shepard copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.
- Five Plays (Chicago; Icarus's Mother; etc.) — 1967 · Bobbs-MerrillTrue first is the Bobbs-Merrill (Indianapolis) 1967 hardcover in cloth with dust jacket, Shepard's first book. It collects Chicago, Icarus's Mother, Red Cross, Fourteen Hundred Thousand, and Melodrama Play. The Faber and Faber (London) edition did not appear until 1969 and was issued in wrappers, so it is not a co-first. US Bobbs-Merrill 1967 hardcover is the true first and precedes the UK Faber edition, which is a 1969 wrappers issue rather than a simultaneous 1967 printing. No book club edition.
- La Turista — 1968 · Bobbs-MerrillTrue first is the Bobbs-Merrill (Indianapolis) 1968 hardcover in cloth with dust jacket, a play in two acts with an introduction by Elizabeth Hardwick. The UK Faber edition followed later and is not a simultaneous co-first. US Bobbs-Merrill 1968 hardcover is the true first; the Faber UK edition is a later printing, so it does not share precedence. No book club edition.
- Operation Sidewinder — 1970 · Bobbs-MerrillTrue first is the Bobbs-Merrill (Indianapolis) 1970 hardcover, Sam Shepard's play in two acts (his third published book), issued in grey cloth boards with the spine lettered in green and running roughly 126 to 127 pages. Dealer descriptions of confirmed firsts note the green spine stamping and a pictorial, photo-illustrated dust jacket that carries the publisher's printed price at the top of the front flap; the…. US Bobbs-Merrill 1970 hardcover is the first edition, described by dealers as First Edition, First Printing. No book club edition.
- Mad Dog Blues & Other Plays — 1972 · Winter HouseWinter House Ltd (New York) 1972, issued in wrappers as The Winter Repertory 4, with an introduction by Michael McClure. Collects Mad Dog Blues, The Rock Garden, Cowboys #2, Cowboy Mouth, Blue Bitch, and Nightwalk. US Winter House 1972 wrappers issue is the first edition. No book club edition.
- The Unseen Hand and Other Plays — 1972 · Bobbs-MerrillTrue first is the Bobbs-Merrill (Indianapolis and New York) 1972 hardcover in black textured paper-covered boards, spine stamped in metallic orange, with a photo-illustrated dust jacket showing the author and O-Lan Jones. Collects Forensic and the Navigators, Melodrama Play, The Rock Garden, Chicago, Icarus's Mother, and Red Cross. US Bobbs-Merrill 1972 hardcover is the collectible first of this gathering. No book club edition.
- Hawk Moon (stories, poems, monologues) — 1973 · Black Sparrow PressBlack Sparrow Press (Los Angeles) 1973, subtitled A Book of Short Stories, Poems, and Monologues, printed from a single first-edition setting with a colophon/limitation leaf. The issue structure is about 1,000 trade copies in stiff illustrated wrappers, plus 226 hardcover copies bound in boards, numbered and signed by Shepard, of which 26 are lettered. The signed hardcover copies (numbered and lettered) and the trade wrappers are all part of the same 1973 first edition issued simultaneously; the signed hardcovers are the more desirable issue but do not textually precede the wrappers. No book club edition.
- Action & The Unseen Hand — 1975 · FaberPaperback wrappers; Faber and Faber, London, 1975 (Faber paperbacks; ISBN 0571107469). Pairs the two plays Action and The Unseen Hand. UK Faber first-thus for this two-play pairing. The play The Unseen Hand had already been collected earlier in the US, as the title play in 'The Unseen Hand and Other Plays' (Bobbs-Merrill, 1972), so this Faber pairing is a genuine first-thus rather than the first appearance of that play. No book club.
- Angel City and Other Plays — 1976 · Urizen BooksUrizen Books, New York, 1976. Issued simultaneously in black cloth with a pictorial dust jacket and in pictorial wrappers. Preface by Jack Gelber. The printed price should be present on the front flap of the cloth-issue jacket. US Urizen first; cloth and wrappers issued simultaneously. No book club.
- Rolling Thunder Logbook (nonfiction) — 1977 · Viking PressViking Press, New York, 1977. Issued in cloth (color pictorial dust jacket) and in wrappers, illustrated throughout with black-and-white photographs (Ken Regan and others). First-printing hardcover shows no later-printing statement and no additional printings listed. Shepard's account of Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue tour. US Viking first. No book club.
- Buried Child — 1979 · Urizen BooksThe true first book appearance is the Urizen Books volume 'Buried Child & Seduced & Suicide in Bb' (New York, 1979), ISBN 0-89396-011-X, issued in hardcover (the only hardcover of the Pulitzer-winning play) and in wrappers. The hardcover is the desirable state. The play is collected here with two other Shepard plays rather than published standalone. There is no standalone US trade-hardcover first of Buried Child alone; the true first book text is the 1979 Urizen collection. The play also appears later in the Bantam collection 'Seven Plays' (1981, trade paperback). Set expectations toward the Urizen 1979 hardcover as the collectible first. Samuel French and Dramatists Play Service acting editions are reference texts, not the collectible first. Bantam 'Seven Plays' (1981) is a trade paperback, not a book-club issue; later Vintage 'Seven Plays' reprints differ.
- Buried Child & Seduced & Suicide in B-Flat — 1979 · Urizen BooksUrizen Books, New York, 1979, 155 pp. Issued simultaneously in cloth and in wrappers; no later printing stated. First book appearance of the Pulitzer-winning Buried Child (which won the 1979 Pulitzer Prize). US Urizen first; the cloth is the only hardcover, issued together with the wrappers. No book club. Later Bantam/Vintage reprints stated as such.
- Four Two-Act Plays — 1980 · Urizen BooksUrizen Books, New York, 1980. Issued in glossy wrappers, with an introduction by Elizabeth Hardwick. Contents: La Turista, The Tooth of Crime, Geography of a Horse Dreamer, and Operation Sidewinder. US Urizen first. No book club.
- Seven Plays — 1981 · Bantam BooksBantam trade paperback wrappers, 1981 (earliest ISBN 0-553-23401-3), collecting Buried Child, Curse of the Starving Class, The Tooth of Crime, La Turista, Tongues, Savage Love, and True West, with the Richard Gilman introduction. Confirm the 1981 Bantam imprint and the original ISBN rather than a later reissue. First appearance of the Richard Gilman introduction. True West appears here, but a Samuel French acting edition of True West also dates to 1981, so precedence for the first book appearance of that single play is not settled; treat the Gilman introduction as the reliably-first element. No book club edition identified for this collection.
- True West — 1981 · Samuel FrenchThe play premiered in 1980. The first book-form text appears in 1981 in the Bantam collection 'Seven Plays' (trade paperback), the Samuel French acting edition, and the Faber UK edition. There is no prominent standalone US trade-hardcover first edition; collect the play within the 1981 collected or acting-edition texts. The true first book text is contained in the 1981 editions rather than a separate trade hardcover. The Faber UK edition and the Bantam 'Seven Plays' collection are the principal collectible texts. Scrutinize any standalone 'first edition' claim carefully. Acting editions and later anthology reprints, including the Vintage 'Seven Plays', are not the first. No book-club hardcover is recorded.
- Motel Chronicles (prose/poems) — 1982 · City LightsCity Lights Books, San Francisco, 1982, 143 pp. Issued in wrappers (cover price 5.95) and also in a hardcover issue (red cloth with black spine lettering, cream endpapers, yellow photo-illustrated dust jacket). Illustrated with photographs by Johnny Dark; designed by Nancy Joyce Peters. US City Lights first; issued in both wrappers and a red-cloth hardcover in 1982. No book club.
- Fool for Love — 1983 · City Lights BooksIssued by City Lights as 'Fool for Love and The Sad Lament of Pecos Bill on the Eve of Killing His Wife,' 1983, trade paperback wrappers, 120 pp., pairing the play with the comic operetta. ISBN 0-87286-150-3. First printing has no later-printing line on the copyright page. The City Lights 1983 trade-paperback original is the true first US book edition. A City Lights hardcover state, distributed as a book-club issue, also exists from 1983. A book-club hardcover (City Lights, 1983) exists, identified by a blind-stamp on the rear board and absence of a price; the paperback original is the standard collectible first. Later Faber UK editions differ.
- Fool for Love and The Sad Lament of Pecos Bill — 1983 · City LightsFirst book appearance in the City Lights paperback (wrappers), 1983, pairing the play with the Sad Lament of Pecos Bill operetta. Look for the City Lights imprint and 1983 copyright, no later printing statement. US City Lights paperback is the true first appearance in book form; the play premiered at the Magic Theatre in 1983. A hardcover book club edition of Fool for Love (with dust jacket) does exist and is commonly offered by dealers; it is a later, secondary form, not the City Lights first.
- A Lie of the Mind — 1986 · New American LibraryThe earliest documented book publications date to the 1985-1986 period: a Dramatists Play Service acting-edition softcover (1986) and the New American Library / NAL Books hardcover, which pairs the play with The War in Heaven and is variously dated 1986 to 1987 by cataloguers (black cloth over boards, silver spine lettering, ISBN 0-453-00530-6). Precedence between these has not been reliably established here. The true first book form is unsettled between the Dramatists Play Service softcover and the NAL hardcover. The later Plume trade paperback is a reprint, not the first. Verify the specific copy against a dependable Shepard bibliography before assigning primacy. No trade book club edition identified. A separate Arion Press limited edition (300 copies, signed, illustrated by Stan Washburn) exists but is a distinct deluxe issue, not the trade first.
- Cruising Paradise (stories) — 1996 · Alfred A. KnopfKnopf hardcover, 1996, half black cloth over boards with silver spine stamping and dust jacket. 'First Edition' stated on the copyright page with the publisher's number line; confirm the stated 'First Edition' wording is present. US Knopf hardcover is the true first; a UK Secker & Warburg edition also appeared in 1996. No book club edition typically encountered for this title.
- Great Dream of Heaven (stories) — 2002 · Alfred A. KnopfKnopf hardcover, 2002, cloth with dust jacket (ISBN 0-375-40505-4). 'First Edition' stated on the copyright page with the publisher's number line; confirm the stated 'First Edition' wording. US Knopf hardcover is the true first. No book club edition typically encountered for this title.
- The God of Hell — 2005 · Vintage BooksVintage trade paperback original, published 12 April 2005 (ISBN 1-400-09651-0 / 9781400096510), with 'A Vintage Original' stated on the copyright page. There was no prior US hardcover; the paperback original is the first US book appearance of the play. The US Vintage paperback original (12 April 2005) is the first book appearance and precedes the UK Methuen Drama edition (ISBN 9780413775665), published 20 October 2005 to coincide with the play's European premiere at the Donmar Warehouse. The Vintage printing therefore holds precedence. No book club edition; issued as a paperback original.
- Day Out of Days (stories) — 2010 · Alfred A. KnopfCloth with dust jacket; Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2010. First printing states 'First Edition' on the copyright page with a complete number line ending in 1. Priced jacket. The US Knopf 2010 edition is the true first edition. No book club edition typically encountered.
- Spy of the First Person (novel) — 2017 · Alfred A. KnopfCloth with dust jacket; Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2017 (Shepard's final book, published December 2017). First printing states 'First Edition' on the copyright page with a complete number line ending in 1. The US Knopf 2017 edition is the true first edition. No book club edition typically encountered.
- The One Inside (novel) — 2017 · Alfred A. KnopfCloth-backed boards with dust jacket; Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2017 (published February 2017), with a foreword by Patti Smith. This was Shepard's debut novel. The first printing states 'First Edition' on the copyright page beneath a Borzoi/Knopf line, with the printing key ending in the numeral 1. The first-issue jacket should carry the printed price on the front flap; jackets are found unclipped. A small…. The US Knopf 2017 edition is the true first edition and the first appearance, carrying Patti Smith's foreword. Confirm the stated 'First Edition' on the copyright page together with a printing key that ends in 1. No book club edition typically encountered; identification rests on the stated 'First Edition' plus the '...1' printing key and a priced first-issue jacket.
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