2 Will Eisner first editions are documented on this shelf, from A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories (1978) to The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (2005) across 2 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Will Eisner 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 Will Eisner copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.

A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories — 1978 · Baronet BooksFirst edition, Baronet Publishing/Baronet Books, New York, October 1978, stating 'First printing, October 1978.' Issued in two simultaneous formats: a hardcover and a trade softcover. The hardcover was a limited issue of 1,500 copies, signed and numbered by Eisner on the front free endpaper, bound in cloth with gilt stamping and issued WITHOUT a dust jacket. The softcover was issued in illustrated wraps and is…. US true first and a foundational graphic-novel landmark. The signed and numbered hardcover (1,500 copies, no jacket) and the simultaneous trade softcover are both first edition. Later Kitchen Sink, DC, and W.W. Norton editions are first-thus. No book-club edition; later Kitchen Sink (1985 onward), DC, and W.W. Norton (2006) printings come well after the 1978 Baronet first. Verify the Baronet imprint, the October 1978 date, and for the hardcover the signed and numbered limitation. Do not expect a dust jacket on the hardcover; none was issued.
The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion — 2005 · W. W. NortonHardcover with dust jacket, W. W. Norton, 2005, with an introduction by Umberto Eco titled 'The Power of Falsehood', ISBN 0-393-06045-4 (978-0-393-06045-4). First printing identified by a complete number line descending to 1 on the copyright page. Eisner's final completed book, published posthumously in 2005. The US Norton hardcover is the true first edition. No book-club edition known. A later Norton paperback (ISBN 978-0-393-32860-8) is a subsequent edition, not the first.

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