# Is "Son of the Morning Star" by Evan S. Connell a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Son of the Morning Star by Evan S. Connell (North Point Press, 1984) is identified by: The first printing is stated on the copyright page — Lorne Bair Rare Books (ABAA) collates it verbatim as "San Francisco: North Point Press, 1984. North Point Press (San Francisco) 1984 is the true first and precedes the UK edition; the small-press US first is the collected edition, and the census is confirmed.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- The first printing is stated on the copyright page — Lorne Bair Rare Books (ABAA) collates it verbatim as "San Francisco: North Point Press, 1984
- First Edition
- First printing
- Cloth-backed boards (hardcover); dustjacket
- 441pp." The book is bound in quarter brown cloth over light-brown paper boards with map endpapers, and the dust jacket and frontispiece are illustrated by Leonard Baskin (John Windle Antiquarian Bookseller, ABAA; Between the Covers)
- The first-printing jacket is priced at the front flap; the price is present at the flap on unclipped copies
- Publisher imprint reads North Point Press

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Evan S. Connell |
| Publisher | North Point Press |
| Year | 1984 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | The first printing is stated on the copyright page — Lorne Bair Rare Books (ABAA) collates it verbatim as "San Francisco: North Point… |
| Book-club edition exists? | Yes |

## Points of issue
The first printing is stated on the copyright page — Lorne Bair Rare Books (ABAA) collates it verbatim as "San Francisco: North Point Press, 1984. First Edition. First printing. Octavo. Cloth-backed boards (hardcover); dustjacket; 441pp." The book is bound in quarter brown cloth over light-brown paper boards with map endpapers, and the dust jacket and frontispiece are illustrated by Leonard Baskin (John Windle Antiquarian Bookseller, ABAA; Between the Covers). The first-printing jacket is priced at the front flap; the price is present at the flap on unclipped copies. The trap: the book ran to at least seven printings, several of them within 1984 itself, all carrying the 1984 date and the identical Baskin jacket — ABAA and other dealers catalogue them as "First Edition; Second Printing," "First Edition; Third Printing" and so on, so the phrase "First Edition" alone does not establish a first printing. Only the printing statement on the copyright page discriminates; no number line for this title is documented in the sources consulted.

## Is this the true first?
North Point Press (San Francisco) 1984 is the true first and precedes the UK edition; the small-press US first is the collected edition, and the census is confirmed. The first British edition is reported as Pavilion Books / Michael Joseph, London, 1985 (447 pp), but that attribution rests on dealer listings rather than a published bibliography, so treat the UK publisher as reported rather than settled. US precedence is not in dispute either way. Note that at least one dealer gives the imprint city as Berkeley rather than San Francisco; the San Francisco imprint is the one carried by Lorne Bair's collation and by library catalogue records.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
A History Book Club edition is recorded (2001, ISBN 0965020622) in Open Library's holdings for the title, alongside Easton Press and BBS Publishing issues; all are reprints. Later trade reissues from HarperPerennial and Pimlico — including the 2005 Pimlico "Wild West" series issue — are reprints or "first thus." Club and reprint copies carry their own ISBNs and lack the North Point copyright-page first-printing statement, which remains the test.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Son of the Morning Star* by Evan S. Connell a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/son-of-the-morning-star
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.