# Is "Big Planet" by Jack Vance a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Big Planet by Jack Vance (Avalon Books / Thomas Bouregy & Co., 1957) is identified by: First edition in book form: New York, Avalon Books (Thomas Bouregy & Co.), 1957; 8vo, 223 pp., red cloth, issued in a pictorial dust jacket with the price present at the flap. US precedes and is the only book-form first: Avalon Books (New York), 1957.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition in book form: New York, Avalon Books (Thomas Bouregy & Co.), 1957
- 8vo, 223 pp., red cloth, issued in a pictorial dust jacket with the price present at the flap
- Cited as Hewett and Mallett, The Work of Jack Vance, A5 — the standard Vance bibliography and the reference ABAA dealers quote for this title
- Avalon used no number line and no edition statement on the copyright page; the publisher's own recorded practice (as collected in Zempel and Verkler's First Editions: A Guide to Identification) is that Avalon does not normally reprint its books and that later printings would be noted
- Identification therefore rests on the Avalon Books imprint, the 1957 date, the red cloth and the correct pictorial jacket; an Avalon-imprint copy carrying any later-printing note is not the first
- The text, not the binding, is this book's real trap: the Avalon first contains a heavily cut text of roughly 47,000 words
- Publisher imprint reads Avalon Books / Thomas Bouregy & Co.

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Jack Vance |
| Publisher | Avalon Books / Thomas Bouregy & Co. |
| Year | 1957 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First edition in book form: New York, Avalon Books (Thomas Bouregy & Co.), 1957 |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First edition in book form: New York, Avalon Books (Thomas Bouregy & Co.), 1957; 8vo, 223 pp., red cloth, issued in a pictorial dust jacket with the price present at the flap. Cited as Hewett and Mallett, The Work of Jack Vance, A5 — the standard Vance bibliography and the reference ABAA dealers quote for this title. Avalon used no number line and no edition statement on the copyright page; the publisher's own recorded practice (as collected in Zempel and Verkler's First Editions: A Guide to Identification) is that Avalon does not normally reprint its books and that later printings would be noted. Identification therefore rests on the Avalon Books imprint, the 1957 date, the red cloth and the correct pictorial jacket; an Avalon-imprint copy carrying any later-printing note is not the first. The text, not the binding, is this book's real trap: the Avalon first contains a heavily cut text of roughly 47,000 words.

## Is this the true first?
US precedes and is the only book-form first: Avalon Books (New York), 1957. Text-state trap — this title has no "true first" in the textual sense a first edition normally implies. Vance's manuscript ran perhaps 120,000 words and was cut by him to about 72,000; Startling Stories (September 1952) cut it again to roughly 52,000 for serialization; Avalon cut it a third time to about 47,000 for the 1957 hardcover. The Ace Double D-295 paperback (1958, backed with Slaves of the Klau) is a later reprint and shorter still. The magazine-length text did not reach book form until Underwood-Miller (San Francisco), 1978 — 236 pp., limited to 1,000 copies, dust jacket and interior illustrations by Stephen Hickman, with 111 copies signed by author and artist and 889 unsigned — which Currey and John W. Knott (both ABAA) correctly catalogue as "first printing of the unabridged text," i.e. a first thus, not the first edition. Collectors who want the book take the Avalon 1957; collectors who want the text take the Underwood-Miller 1978. Both are legitimately collected and should be named separately.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club printing of the Avalon edition is documented in the sources consulted. Avalon sold into the library market, so ex-library copies with stamps, pockets, spine labels and taped jackets are the routine condition trap here rather than club copies. The issues to rule out are the Ace Double D-295 paperback (1958, backed with Slaves of the Klau), the Underwood-Miller 1978 limited (a "first thus" restoring the magazine text), and the later Gollancz issues. Any copy in wrappers, or in cloth without the Avalon Books imprint and 1957 date, is not the first.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Big Planet* by Jack Vance a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/big-planet
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.