# Is "Furious Seasons and Other Stories" by Raymond Carver a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Furious Seasons and Other Stories by Raymond Carver (Capra Press, 1977) is identified by: True first edition: Capra Press, Santa Barbara, 1977 — Carver's second story collection, octavo, 110 pp., printed in a total edition of 1,300 copies with two simultaneous states. US Capra Press (Santa Barbara), 1977 is the sole true first.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- True first edition: Capra Press, Santa Barbara, 1977 — Carver's second story collection, octavo, 110 pp., printed in a total edition of 1,300 copies with two simultaneous states
- The trade issue of 1,200 copies is in printed wrappers: brown wraps with the title lettered in red on both the covers and the spine
- A signed-and-numbered issue of 100 copies was bound in black cloth with paper labels affixed to the front cover and spine, numbered on the colophon and signed by Carver
- The 1,200 wrappers plus 100 cloth copies account for the full 1,300-copy edition; the first printing carries no additional-printing notation
- Publisher imprint reads Capra Press
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Raymond Carver |
| Publisher | Capra Press |
| Year | 1977 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | True first edition: Capra Press, Santa Barbara, 1977 — Carver's second story collection, octavo, 110 pp., printed in a total edition of… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
True first edition: Capra Press, Santa Barbara, 1977 — Carver's second story collection, octavo, 110 pp., printed in a total edition of 1,300 copies with two simultaneous states. The trade issue of 1,200 copies is in printed wrappers: brown wraps with the title lettered in red on both the covers and the spine. A signed-and-numbered issue of 100 copies was bound in black cloth with paper labels affixed to the front cover and spine, numbered on the colophon and signed by Carver. The 1,200 wrappers plus 100 cloth copies account for the full 1,300-copy edition; the first printing carries no additional-printing notation.

## Is this the true first?
US Capra Press (Santa Barbara), 1977 is the sole true first. The collection had no separate contemporaneous UK edition — the Raymond Carver Review primary bibliography lists only the 1977 Capra printing, with these stories later absorbed into UK collections (e.g. Picador's The Stories of Raymond Carver, 1985). No original-language precedence issue.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club edition. The key distinction is the two 1977 states within the 1,300-copy total: 100 signed/numbered black-cloth hardcovers versus 1,200 printed-wrapper copies. Later reissues and trade paperbacks of the collection are not the Capra first.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Furious Seasons and Other Stories* by Raymond Carver a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/furious-seasons-and-other-stories
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.