2 Whitley Strieber first editions are documented on this shelf, from The Wolfen (1978) to The Hunger (1981) across 2 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Whitley Strieber 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 Whitley Strieber copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.

The Wolfen — 1978 · William Morrow, New YorkThe first printing carries the "First Edition" statement on the copyright page together with a complete number line reading 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10. The number line is the load-bearing point, not the statement: the standard publisher guide records that Morrow has used a number row since 1973 and only sometimes a first-edition statement, and that Morrow occasionally failed to strip the first-edition statement from…. William Morrow, New York, 1978 is the true first of Strieber's debut novel. A first British edition was published the same year by Hodder & Stoughton, London (ISBN 0-340-23532-2) and is separately collected as the UK first, but it follows the Morrow printing — Strieber is American and the book was a US origination. The 1992 UK reissue (Melvyn Grant cover) and the later illustrated Artist Edition of 1,000 copies…. No Wolfen-specific book-club record surfaced in the sources consulted, but the standard tells for US hardcovers of this period apply and should be checked: a blind stamp (dot, circle or square) impressed into the rear board near the spine, a jacket with no price at the front flap, thinner paper and a smaller trim size, and — for Book-of-the-Month copies — a code printed sideways at the foot of the last page….
The Hunger — 1981 · William Morrow and Company, New YorkIdentification rests on the number row on the copyright page: Morrow has used a descending or interleaved number line since 1973, and the presence of the numeral 1 in that row marks the first printing. Do not rely on a "First Edition" slug alone — Morrow is documented by both the ILAB and Quill & Brush publisher guides as having used a first-edition statement only intermittently and as being notoriously…. The true first is the US edition, William Morrow and Company, New York, 1981. The first UK edition is The Bodley Head, London, 1981 (ISBN 0-370-30398-9), bound in black cloth/boards with silver spine lettering; its copyright page reads "First published in Great Britain in 1981," a formula that itself signals prior publication abroad and therefore confirms US precedence rather than a shared-year tie. Both editions…. Book-club copies of the 1981 Morrow issue circulate and are frequently mis-sold as firsts. The documented tells are a jacket with no price at the front flap, a small blind stamp (impressed square, circle, or dot) on the lower rear board, and a smaller trim size with thinner paper and cheaper binding than the trade issue. A separate club-issue ISBN (0-7394-1997-8) is also recorded for this title. A club copy….

More Fantasy & Horror shelves: William Hope Hodgson, William Peter Blatty, Alexandre Dumas, Algernon Blackwood, Ambrose Bierce, Ann Radcliffe.

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