# Is "Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly" by Anthony Bourdain a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain (Bloomsbury, 2000) is identified by: Census claim confirmed. US precedence: the Bloomsbury USA New York edition was published 22 May 2000 and Bourdain's book is a US first publication (it grew out of his 1999 New Yorker piece).

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition: Bloomsbury, New York, 2000
- ISBN 1-58234-082-X; approximately 320 pp
- The first printing shows the complete number line running down to 1 (10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1) on the copyright page — later printings drop the low digits, and first-edition/second-through-seventh-printing copies are widely offered and widely mislabelled
- Binding: black boards (described by dealers variously as cloth-backed and paper-covered) with the spine lettered/stamped in red
- Issued in the familiar photographic jacket with the price present at the flap; a great many copies are price-clipped, and a clipped jacket removes the flap evidence, so the number line — not the jacket — is the test
- Signed copies are the sought form
- Publisher imprint reads Bloomsbury

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Anthony Bourdain |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury |
| Year | 2000 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First edition: Bloomsbury, New York, 2000 |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
Census claim confirmed. First edition: Bloomsbury, New York, 2000; ISBN 1-58234-082-X; approximately 320 pp. The first printing shows the complete number line running down to 1 (10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1) on the copyright page — later printings drop the low digits, and first-edition/second-through-seventh-printing copies are widely offered and widely mislabelled. Binding: black boards (described by dealers variously as cloth-backed and paper-covered) with the spine lettered/stamped in red. Issued in the familiar photographic jacket with the price present at the flap; a great many copies are price-clipped, and a clipped jacket removes the flap evidence, so the number line — not the jacket — is the test. Signed copies are the sought form; Bourdain signed on the title page.

## Is this the true first?
US precedence: the Bloomsbury USA New York edition was published 22 May 2000 and Bourdain's book is a US first publication (it grew out of his 1999 New Yorker piece). The first UK edition — Bloomsbury, London, 2000, ISBN 0-7475-5072-7 (the 0-7475-5001-2/0747553556 numbers attach to related Bloomsbury UK issues), black cloth boards stamped in red foil — is a separate, collected edition but follows the US. The census note that the two are "the same setting" was NOT confirmed by any source consulted and should not be published; the two are separately identified by dealers and carry distinct ISBNs and number-line conventions. Buy the US for the true first; buy the UK only as the first UK.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No dedicated book-club edition is documented for the 2000 hardcover. The routine traps are (1) later Bloomsbury printings retaining the 2000 date and the "first edition" wording while the number line starts above 1; (2) the Ecco/HarperCollins and later paperback issues; and (3) the Bloomsbury 25th Anniversary edition, which reuses ISBN 9781582340821 — the same ISBN as the 2000 first — so an ISBN match alone proves nothing. Verify the number line.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly* by Anthony Bourdain a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/kitchen-confidential-adventures-in-the-culinary-underbelly
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.