# Is "Blood and Guts in High School" by Kathy Acker a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Blood and Guts in High School by Kathy Acker (Grove Press, 1984) is identified by: Written in the 1970s and copyrighted 1978, the book first reached print in 1984. UK first precedes: Picador (an imprint of Pan Books), London, January 1984, whose first print run sold out within three weeks.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Written in the 1970s and copyrighted 1978, the book first reached print in 1984
- The Grove Press (New York) edition is the US first, issued both in cloth and in wraps, with the printed price present on a first-state jacket
- A notable text point of the original 1984 setting: in the rush to publish, both Grove and Picador printed the final two sections, 'The Journey' and 'The World,' in reversed order; this transposition persisted in the early printings and was only corrected in Grove's 2017 anniversary edition, so the reversed-section state marks the original issue rather than the corrected later text
- Publisher imprint reads Grove Press
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Kathy Acker |
| Publisher | Grove Press |
| Year | 1984 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | Written in the 1970s and copyrighted 1978, the book first reached print in 1984 |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
Written in the 1970s and copyrighted 1978, the book first reached print in 1984. The Grove Press (New York) edition is the US first, issued both in cloth and in wraps, with the printed price present on a first-state jacket. A notable text point of the original 1984 setting: in the rush to publish, both Grove and Picador printed the final two sections, 'The Journey' and 'The World,' in reversed order; this transposition persisted in the early printings and was only corrected in Grove's 2017 anniversary edition, so the reversed-section state marks the original issue rather than the corrected later text.

## Is this the true first?
UK first precedes: Picador (an imprint of Pan Books), London, January 1984, whose first print run sold out within three weeks. The Grove (New York) edition appeared essentially concurrently the same year and is the US first; bibliographers generally treat the UK Picador as the true first. Both original 1984 issues share the reversed final-section text.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
None notable. A corrected text, with 'The Journey' and 'The World' restored to intended order, marks Grove's 2017 anniversary edition, distinguishing it from the original 1984 printings.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Blood and Guts in High School* by Kathy Acker a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/blood-and-guts-in-high-school
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.