# Is "The Blade Itself" by Joe Abercrombie a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie (Gollancz, 2006) is identified by: True first is the Gollancz hardcover, London, published 4 May 2006. Census claim confirmed.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- True first is the Gollancz hardcover, London, published 4 May 2006
- The first printing carries the Gollancz number line "1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2" on the copyright page; the 1 must be present
- The author's first book and the first volume of the First Law trilogy; jacket design by Laura Brett
- Priced jacket: price present at the flap
- Format trap: Gollancz issued the title in 2006 in both hardcover and trade paperback, and the library record for the 2006 Gollancz printing carries both ISBNs together (0-575-07785-9 and 0-575-07786-7)
- Dealers assign these two ISBNs to the two formats inconsistently and contradict one another, so format must be judged from the physical book rather than from the ISBN in a listing
- Publisher imprint reads Gollancz

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Joe Abercrombie |
| Publisher | Gollancz |
| Year | 2006 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | True first is the Gollancz hardcover, London, published 4 May 2006 |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
True first is the Gollancz hardcover, London, published 4 May 2006. The first printing carries the Gollancz number line "1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2" on the copyright page; the 1 must be present. The author's first book and the first volume of the First Law trilogy; jacket design by Laura Brett. Priced jacket: price present at the flap. Format trap: Gollancz issued the title in 2006 in both hardcover and trade paperback, and the library record for the 2006 Gollancz printing carries both ISBNs together (0-575-07785-9 and 0-575-07786-7). Dealers assign these two ISBNs to the two formats inconsistently and contradict one another, so format must be judged from the physical book rather than from the ISBN in a listing. The hardcover is the collected first. The 2007 Gollancz B-format paperback is a later issue.

## Is this the true first?
Census claim confirmed. The Gollancz UK 2006 edition precedes the first American edition from Pyr (Amherst, New York), September 2007 — which the Library of Congress catalogues as "the printed pricet American pbk. ed." (ISBN 1-59102-594-X), so the US first is a trade paperback, not a hardcover, and is a decidedly secondary collecting target. Independent confirmation of UK precedence: the title verso of the 2015 Orbit US edition states "First published in Great Britain in 2006 by Gollancz."

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue is documented. "First thus" traps, and they are serious here: the Subterranean Press signed limited (2010, 500 numbered copies), the Gollancz Tenth Anniversary hardcover (2016, ISBN 9781473216785), and the 2022 Victor Gollancz signed reissue — a dealer describes that 2022 reissue as "the printed pricet Edition" with "numbers 1-10 present to confirm the first edition state," which demonstrates that a full number line by itself does not make a copy a 2006 first. Check the imprint date, not just the line.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Blade Itself* by Joe Abercrombie a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-blade-itself
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.