# Is "The Cipher" by Kathe Koja a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Cipher by Kathe Koja (Dell / Abyss, New York, 1991) is identified by: The true first is a mass-market PAPERBACK ORIGINAL — Dell/Abyss, New York, February 1991, ISBN 0-440-20782-7, 356 pages, with cover art by Marshall Arisman. US Dell/Abyss, New York, February 1991 paperback original is the true first; there is no UK-vs-US precedence question and no original-language issue.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- The true first is a mass-market PAPERBACK ORIGINAL — Dell/Abyss, New York, February 1991, ISBN 0-440-20782-7, 356 pages, with cover art by Marshall Arisman
- There is no contemporaneous hardcover of any kind, so any hardcover copy is by definition a later edition
- First printing is identified by the complete descending number line 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 on the copyright page; a line no longer reaching 1 indicates a later printing
- This was the author's first book and the inaugural title of Dell's Abyss line, which won the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel (shared with Melanie Tem's Prodigal) and a Locus Award
- Advance/uncorrected proof copies of Abyss titles including this one are documented in the trade (Ken Lopez Bookseller, ABAA) and are a separate state from the published paperback — do not conflate a proof with a first printing
- Publisher imprint reads Dell / Abyss, New York
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Kathe Koja |
| Publisher | Dell / Abyss, New York |
| Year | 1991 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | The true first is a mass-market PAPERBACK ORIGINAL — Dell/Abyss, New York, February 1991, ISBN 0-440-20782-7, 356 pages, with cover art by… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
The true first is a mass-market PAPERBACK ORIGINAL — Dell/Abyss, New York, February 1991, ISBN 0-440-20782-7, 356 pages, with cover art by Marshall Arisman. There is no contemporaneous hardcover of any kind, so any hardcover copy is by definition a later edition. First printing is identified by the complete descending number line 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 on the copyright page; a line no longer reaching 1 indicates a later printing. This was the author's first book and the inaugural title of Dell's Abyss line, which won the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel (shared with Melanie Tem's Prodigal) and a Locus Award. Advance/uncorrected proof copies of Abyss titles including this one are documented in the trade (Ken Lopez Bookseller, ABAA) and are a separate state from the published paperback — do not conflate a proof with a first printing.

## Is this the true first?
US Dell/Abyss, New York, February 1991 paperback original is the true first; there is no UK-vs-US precedence question and no original-language issue. The collecting trap is format, not country: because the first edition is a disposable mass-market paperback, the handsome later hardcovers are frequently mistaken for firsts.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club edition documented. The census claim of 'no hardcover until the printed pricet-century reissues' is correct in direction but imprecise and is CORRECTED here: the Meerkat Press reissue of 15 September 2020 (ISBN 978-1-946154-33-0) was a PAPERBACK, adding a new afterword by Maryse Meijer, and is a first thus only. The first hardcover of any kind is the Centipede Press (Lakewood, CO) 2022 edition, ISBN 978-1-61347-295-8 — a limited, signed, numbered issue of 500 copies bound in black Brillianta cloth, 292 pages, with jacket, frontispiece and six interior illustrations by Martin Ander; it is a first hardcover edition, not a first edition. A 1996 Dell reprint of the paperback also exists.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Cipher* by Kathe Koja a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-cipher
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.