4 Tim O'Brien first editions are documented on this shelf, from If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home (1973) to The Things They Carried (1990) across 3 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Tim O'Brien 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 Tim O'Brien copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.
- If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home — 1973 · Delacorte Press / Seymour LawrenceDelacorte/Seymour Lawrence hardcover, 1973, with a stated 'First printing' on the copyright page. First-issue dust jacket carries the printed price. Later printings drop the 'First printing' statement. This is O'Brien's first book (a memoir). The US Delacorte/Seymour Lawrence edition and the UK Calder & Boyars edition both appeared in 1973 and are generally treated as simultaneous; the US edition does not clearly precede the UK. The US Delacorte is the collected American first. No book-club issue of note for the first; later printings drop the stated 'First printing.' The stated 'First printing' plus the printed-price jacket identifies the US first.
- Northern Lights — 1975 · Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence, New YorkFirst printing: per the Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence convention of the period the copyright page states "First printing" with no later printing indicated — a copy naming any subsequent printing is not a first. Binding is a dark blue cloth backstrip over purple/lilac paper-covered boards, the spine lettered in silver and purple, with purple endpapers; 8vo, 356 pp. (one dealer loosely reads the dark blue…. US Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence (New York, August 1975) is the true first. The first British edition followed from Calder & Boyars (London, 1976), carrying the 1975 copyright; the UK hardback issue is reported at roughly 900 copies and is uncommon in its own right, so both editions are collected. This is O'Brien's first novel but his SECOND book, the memoir If I Die in a Combat Zone (1973) preceding it.…. No book-club edition documented for the 1975 Delacorte issue. Reprint tell: any printing statement on the copyright page other than "First printing." Later editions to know: the Dell mass-market paperback (ISBN 0440066646) and the 1999 Broadway Books reissue are reprints. Because the book is perfect-bound and cheaply made, condition flaws — cracked or separated text block, toned board edges, foxed fore-edge — are….
- Going After Cacciato — 1978 · Delacorte Press / Seymour Lawrence'First Printing' stated on the copyright page; issued under the Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence imprint, New York, 1978. Light green cloth boards with the author's facsimile signature stamped in gilt at the foot of the front board; dust jacket carries the printed price on the front flap. The US Delacorte/Seymour Lawrence hardcover is the true first. It won the National Book Award for Fiction announced in 1979 for the 1978 publication. The Jonathan Cape UK edition follows. The book-club edition is smaller, has a blind stamp to the rear board, and its jacket lacks a printed price and is marked as a book-club issue on the flap.
- The Things They Carried — 1990 · Houghton Mifflin / Seymour Lawrence, BostonFirst trade edition (Houghton Mifflin / Seymour Lawrence, Boston, 1990): ISBN 0-395-51598-X; 8vo, [14], 273, [1] pp; first printing carries the full number line 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 on the copyright page — any line missing the 1 is a later printing. The jacket has two states and the first-issue jacket is the point: the spine title is printed slightly off-centre / off-register, '0390' appears at the foot of the…. Houghton Mifflin/Seymour Lawrence is often named as the first without qualification, but two independent dealers state the Franklin Library signed edition was issued before the trade edition — Rulon-Miller Books catalogues the Houghton Mifflin explicitly as 'first trade edition. A signed edition was previously issued by the Franklin Library,' and dealer consensus on the Franklin Library issue describes it as…. No trade book-club variant is documented for this title in the sources consulted. The Franklin Library leatherbound is a separate signed issue, not a book-club reprint, and should not be described as one. Reprint tell for the trade edition: a number line no longer ending in 1. Jacket tell: a centred spine title marks the second-issue jacket, which is frequently married to first-printing sheets.
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