# Is "The Hunger" by Whitley Strieber a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Hunger by Whitley Strieber (William Morrow and Company, New York, 1981) is identified by: Identification rests on the number row on the copyright page: Morrow has used a descending or interleaved number line since 1973, and the presence of the numeral 1 in that row marks the first printing. The census claim stands: the true first is the US edition, William Morrow and Company, New York, 1981.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Identification rests on the number row on the copyright page: Morrow has used a descending or interleaved number line since 1973, and the presence of the numeral 1 in that row marks the first printing
- Do not rely on a "First Edition" slug alone — Morrow is documented by both the ILAB and Quill & Brush publisher guides as having used a first-edition statement only intermittently and as being notoriously inconsistent about removing it from later printings, so a copy can read "First Edition" and still be a later printing
- Correct first-printing copies are the 1981 Morrow hardcover in a priced jacket (price present at the front flap, unclipped)
- No first-state text error, cancel, or binding variant is recorded for this title in any source consulted; the title-specific number-line configuration is not set down in a published Strieber bibliography, so the row itself — not a dealer's assertion — is the point to check on the copy in hand
- Publisher imprint reads William Morrow and Company, New York
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Whitley Strieber |
| Publisher | William Morrow and Company, New York |
| Year | 1981 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | Identification rests on the number row on the copyright page: Morrow has used a descending or interleaved number line since 1973, and the… |
| Book-club edition exists? | Yes |

## Points of issue
Identification rests on the number row on the copyright page: Morrow has used a descending or interleaved number line since 1973, and the presence of the numeral 1 in that row marks the first printing. Do not rely on a "First Edition" slug alone — Morrow is documented by both the ILAB and Quill & Brush publisher guides as having used a first-edition statement only intermittently and as being notoriously inconsistent about removing it from later printings, so a copy can read "First Edition" and still be a later printing. Correct first-printing copies are the 1981 Morrow hardcover in a priced jacket (price present at the front flap, unclipped). No first-state text error, cancel, or binding variant is recorded for this title in any source consulted; the title-specific number-line configuration is not set down in a published Strieber bibliography, so the row itself — not a dealer's assertion — is the point to check on the copy in hand.

## Is this the true first?
The census claim stands: the true first is the US edition, William Morrow and Company, New York, 1981. The first UK edition is The Bodley Head, London, 1981 (ISBN 0-370-30398-9), bound in black cloth/boards with silver spine lettering; its copyright page reads "First published in Great Britain in 1981," a formula that itself signals prior publication abroad and therefore confirms US precedence rather than a shared-year tie. Both editions are collected, but the Morrow is the first. One AbeBooks listing dates the Bodley Head to 1980; that is contradicted by Open Library, by other dealer copies, and by the "First published in Great Britain in 1981" statement, and is treated here as a listing error. Later Corgi (1983) and Pocket/Simon & Schuster paperbacks are reprints, and the Deneuve/Bowie cover state is a 1983 film tie-in — a "first thus" trap, not a first edition.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Book-club copies of the 1981 Morrow issue circulate and are frequently mis-sold as firsts. The documented tells are a jacket with no price at the front flap, a small blind stamp (impressed square, circle, or dot) on the lower rear board, and a smaller trim size with thinner paper and cheaper binding than the trade issue. A separate club-issue ISBN (0-7394-1997-8) also appears in the record for this title. A club copy remains a club copy even where a first-edition statement is present.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Hunger* by Whitley Strieber a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-hunger
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.