Is My If This Is a Man (US: Survival in Auschwitz; Se questo è un uomo) a First Edition?

The points of issue

• Turin: Francesco De Silva, published 11 October 1947 in 2,500 copies, under Franco Antonicelli as publisher and series director (Antonicelli chose the final title)
• Issued in the series "Biblioteca Leone Ginzburg" — documenti e studi di storia contemporanea — as number 3; the series line is a primary identification point
• 198 pp., in publisher's wrappers with a typographic device and titles printed in red to the front cover and spine
• The pictorial dust jacket reproduces a graphically retouched Goya (Álbum C, plate 49, originally titled "La misma") and prints Levi's epigraph-poem with the opening verse "Considerate se questo è un uomo" picked out in red; the jacket is usually absent and its presence is a significant point
• There is no printing statement and no number line — the De Silva imprint, the 1947 date, the Biblioteca Leone Ginzburg series line and the Goya jacket carry the identification
• Roughly 1,500 copies sold; the unsold remainder passed to La Nuova Italia when De Silva ceded operations in 1949 and was destroyed in the Florence flood of 4 November 1966, which is why survivors are few — the Centro Internazionale di Studi Primo Levi has run a public census appealing for surviving 1947 copies

How to confirm the first-printing statement

Publishers stated first printings differently by era. The decisive tells are a printed “First Edition/First Printing” statement, a number line whose lowest number is 1 (Random House ends at 2), or a dated first printing with no later printings listed. Paste your copyright page into the number-line decoder.

How to verify your copy, step by step

1. Find the copyright page — the verso (back) of the title page.
2. Read the number line — the lowest number is the printing. A line including 1 is a first printing (Random House deliberately ends at 2). Paste it into the decoder.
3. Verify this is the US true first — not a later-market or reprint edition.
4. Rule out a book-club edition — a blind-stamp on the rear board or a jacket with no printed price marks a book-club copy.
5. Photograph four things — the front cover, spine, title page, and copyright page — the standard record for identification.

The dust jacket

For a collectible first edition the dust jacket matters as much as the book. Confirm the jacket is present and unclipped — the printed price should still be at the corner of the flap (a clipped corner or a price-less flap can indicate a book-club issue). First-state jackets can differ from later ones in the cover art, blurbs, or review quotations; where a specific first-state jacket point is known for this title it is noted above.

Binding & format

Where multiple bindings exist, the hardcover trade issue is usually (but not always) the precedence copy — confirm against the points above. Later printings often show cheaper cloth, thinner boards, or simplified spine stamping. A simultaneous signed or limited issue, when one exists, is a distinct state from the trade first.

Is this the true first?

Italian-original precedence; the census claim of De Silva (Turin), 1947, 2,500 copies, is correct on every count. The principal trap is the far commoner Turin: Einaudi, 1958 edition (in the "Saggi" series, first printing of 2,000 copies followed by a second of the same size). Einaudi had rejected the book in 1947; Levi signed with them in 1955 and the text was enriched with new episodes before the 1958 publication. The 1958 Einaudi is therefore a revised and expanded text — an important book in its own right, and the text from which the work's worldwide circulation descends — but it is a "first thus," not the first edition. First English: New York, The Orion Press, 1959, "If This Is a Man," translated by Stuart Woolf — first edition, first printing, 8vo, [vi], 206, [ii] pp., original blue cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in an illustrated wraparound dust jacket designed by Wladislaw Finne. The US title "Survival in Auschwitz: The Nazi Assault on Humanity" first appears on the Collier Books paperback of 1961 and on later American issues — a copy titled Survival in Auschwitz is never the first English edition. British issues under The Bodley Head imprint are later than the 1959 Orion Press, though I did not pin their date against two independent authorities and no Bodley Head date is asserted here.

Telling it from reprints & book-club editions

No book-club issue is documented for the 1947 De Silva in the sources consulted. The 1961 Collier Books paperback is a mass-market retitling of the same Woolf translation, not a new text, and is a reprint. Later Einaudi issues — Saggi, Super ET, ET Scrittori, the school editions and the omnibus pairing with La tregua — are all reprints or "first thus" repackagings of the 1958 revised text and carry modern ISBNs. The single most common misattribution is treating any Einaudi copy, including 1958, as the first edition; only the 1947 De Silva Biblioteca Leone Ginzburg volume is.

Frequently asked questions

Is my copy of If This Is a Man (US: Survival in Auschwitz; Se questo è un uomo) a first edition?

A first edition of If This Is a Man (US: Survival in Auschwitz; Se questo è un uomo) by Primo Levi (Francesco De Silva) is identified by: Turin: Francesco De Silva, published 11 October 1947 in 2,500 copies, under Franco Antonicelli as publisher and series director (Antonicelli chose the final title).

How do I tell the first printing from a later one?

Check the copyright page. A number line whose lowest number is 1 marks a first printing (Random House ends at 2). Italian-original precedence; the census claim of De Silva (Turin), 1947, 2,500 copies, is correct on every count.

Is the book-club edition the same as the first?

No book-club issue is documented for the 1947 De Silva in the sources consulted. The 1961 Collier Books paperback is a mass-market retitling of the same Woolf translation, not a new text, and is a reprint. Later Einaudi issues — Saggi, Super ET, ET Scrittori, the school editions and the omnibus pairing with La tregua — are all reprints or "first thus" repackagings of the 1958 revised text and carry modern ISBNs. The single most common misattribution is treating any Einaudi copy, including 1958,

I have a first edition of If This Is a Man (US: Survival in Auschwitz; Se questo è un uomo) — what should I do?

First, document the copy: photograph the copyright page (the number line and any edition statement) and the dust-jacket flap — an unclipped, priced jacket matters. Confirm the points of issue above against your copy, and use the free First Edition Checker to decode the printing. To sell, the author’s collecting guide covers the market. And if you are clearing books in the Albuquerque area, the New Mexico Literacy Project offers free pickup, any condition, and makes sure collectible copies are identified rather than discarded.

Glossary

First edition

Every copy printed from the first setting of type. Collectors usually want the first edition, first printing (the true first).

First printing / impression

A single press run from that setting. The first printing is the earliest and most desirable; later printings are still the first edition but not the true first.

Number line (printer's key)

A row of numbers on the copyright page (e.g. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1). The lowest number present is the printing — a line including 1 marks a first printing (Random House deliberately ends at 2).

Points of issue

Specific physical details — a stated edition, a number line, a typo, a jacket state — that identify the true first printing.

Book-club edition (BCE)

A reprint made for a book club. Tells include a blind-stamped dot or square on the rear board and a dust jacket with no printed price. Not the true first.

First thus

The first appearance of a particular version (first paperback, first illustrated, first U.S. printing) — a first of that kind, not the first edition of the work.