2 Thomas Tryon first editions are documented on this shelf, from The Other (1971) to Harvest Home (1973). Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Thomas Tryon 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 Thomas Tryon copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.

The Other — 1971 · Alfred A. Knopf, New York"FIRST EDITION" is stated on the copyright page (verso of the title leaf) — Knopf's house point, and it is removed on subsequent printings, which instead state the printing number and month (the second printing followed in June 1971, a third and further printings through the year, as the book held the New York Times best-seller list for more than six months). First printing was May 1971. Bound in red cloth with…. The US Alfred A. Knopf edition of May 1971 is the true first — Tryon's first novel, and with The Exorcist a founding book of the 1970s horror boom. A first British edition was published by Jonathan Cape, London, also in 1971 (brown boards with gilt-lettered backstrip, 280 pp., carrying the same Paul Bacon jacket illustration); it is collected in its own right, but Knopf holds precedence. Where both are offered,…. Book-club copies are identified by a small blind-stamped dot to the rear board and a dust jacket with no price at the flap; one dealer records the August 1971 fifth printing having been used as the book-club issue. Because the club jacket carries the same Paul Bacon artwork, the rear-board dot and the unpriced flap are the tells — together with the absence of the "FIRST EDITION" statement on the copyright page.
Harvest Home — 1973 · Alfred A. Knopf, New YorkKnopf first printings state "First Edition" on the copyright page with no accompanying reprint or later-printing line; the presence of that bare statement, unqualified, is the operative test. This follows Knopf house practice — consistent since 1933–34 — of stating "First Edition" on first printings and noting every subsequent printing, so later impressions of Harvest Home carry a reprint statement ("Second…. The true first is the US edition: Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1973. The census precedence note is WRONG on the UK side: there is no Heinemann edition. The first UK edition was published by Hodder & Stoughton, London, dated 1974 (recorded publication 4 February 1974), in green boards with gilt spine lettering and a green top edge, 401pp — roughly a year after Knopf, so it holds no precedence. Both the Knopf 1973…. A Book Club Edition was issued under the same Knopf imprint and 1973 title page, which is the trap — the title page alone does not distinguish it. BCE tells: the jacket is printed without a price at the flap (an unpriced jacket, not a clipped one), a blind stamp / small embossed device is present on the lower rear board, and the book is bulked on lighter stock with a slightly smaller trim than the trade first.….

More Fantasy & Horror shelves: Tim Powers, Victor Hugo, Whitley Strieber, William Hope Hodgson, William Peter Blatty, Alexandre Dumas.

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