# Is "The Dragon Masters" by Jack Vance a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Dragon Masters by Jack Vance (Ace Books, 1963) is identified by: First edition in book form: New York, Ace Books, Inc., 1963, as half of Ace Double Novel Books F-185, backed with Vance's own The Five Gold Bands. US paperback original precedes and is the true first book appearance: Ace Double F-185 (New York), 1963 — the 1963 Hugo winner for best short fiction.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition in book form: New York, Ace Books, Inc., 1963, as half of Ace Double Novel Books F-185, backed with Vance's own The Five Gold Bands
- Small octavo in full-colour pictorial wrappers
- Currey's ABAA record states plainly that no statement of printing appears, so identification rests on the F-185 catalogue number, the backed Double format and the 1963 Ace imprint — later Ace reissues carry different catalogue numbers
- This is a paperback original in the sense that matters: the story had appeared only in Galaxy (August 1962) beforehand, and no hardcover preceded the Ace Double
- One caution on the record itself — at least one ABAA listing dates the Ace Double to 1962, conflating the book with the Galaxy appearance
- Currey and the general run of dealer catalogues give 1963
- Publisher imprint reads Ace Books

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Jack Vance |
| Publisher | Ace Books |
| Year | 1963 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First edition in book form: New York, Ace Books, Inc., 1963, as half of Ace Double Novel Books F-185, backed with Vance's own The Five Gold… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First edition in book form: New York, Ace Books, Inc., 1963, as half of Ace Double Novel Books F-185, backed with Vance's own The Five Gold Bands. Small octavo in full-colour pictorial wrappers; Currey's ABAA record states plainly that no statement of printing appears, so identification rests on the F-185 catalogue number, the backed Double format and the 1963 Ace imprint — later Ace reissues carry different catalogue numbers. This is a paperback original in the sense that matters: the story had appeared only in Galaxy (August 1962) beforehand, and no hardcover preceded the Ace Double. One caution on the record itself — at least one ABAA listing dates the Ace Double to 1962, conflating the book with the Galaxy appearance; Currey and the general run of dealer catalogues give 1963. Note also that the companion half is not a first: The Five Gold Bands ran in Startling Stories (November 1950) and appeared as a book from Toby Press in 1953 under the title The Space Pirate, so F-185 reprints it.

## Is this the true first?
US paperback original precedes and is the true first book appearance: Ace Double F-185 (New York), 1963 — the 1963 Hugo winner for best short fiction. CORRECTION to the census claim that the hardcovers are "later small-press reprints": that is wrong. The first hardcover and first British edition came from a trade publisher, Dennis Dobson (London), 1965 — octavo, [iv] 5-136 pp., green cloth lettered in silver on the spine, jacket designed by Richard Weaver, price present at the flap by way of the Dobson net-price sticker; Raptis Rare Books and The Fine Books Company (both ABAA) catalogue it as "first British and first hardcover edition." Both editions are collected and should be named together: the Ace Double is the first edition, the Dobson is the first hardcover and first UK. Galaxy (August 1962) precedes both but is a periodical, not an edition. The genuinely small-press hardcovers (Underwood-Miller, Suntup) arrive decades later and are "first thus."

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club printing is documented in the sources consulted for either the Ace Double or the Dobson hardcover. The reprint tells are catalogue number and format: any Ace paperback of the title lacking the F-185 number and the backed Double format is a later Ace printing, and standalone paperback issues (Mayflower and later) are reprints. On the hardcover side only the 1965 Dobson is contemporary — Underwood-Miller and Suntup hardcovers are modern small-press "first thus" editions — and a genuine Dobson should show green cloth with silver spine lettering beneath the Richard Weaver jacket.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Dragon Masters* by Jack Vance a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-dragon-masters
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.