# Is "The Stealer of Souls" by Michael Moorcock a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Stealer of Souls by Michael Moorcock (Neville Spearman, 1963) is identified by: Neville Spearman, London, published 25 October 1963. Census claim confirmed.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Neville Spearman, London, published 25 October 1963
- Octavo, 215pp, jacket art by Guy Nicholls; on an unclipped example the price is present at the jacket flap
- No ISBN. The title page reads 'The Stealer of Souls and other stories' — the '...and other stories' subtitle was imposed by the publisher against Moorcock's wishes
- The controlling point is the binding: the first printing is bound in ORANGE cloth/boards with the spine lettered in black; an otherwise identical second printing is bound in GREEN boards
- Because the two printings are otherwise indistinguishable, board colour is the test — a green-board copy is a second printing however 'first edition' the copyright page may read
- Publisher imprint reads Neville Spearman
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Michael Moorcock |
| Publisher | Neville Spearman |
| Year | 1963 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | Neville Spearman, London, published 25 October 1963 |
| Book-club edition exists? | Yes |

## Points of issue
Neville Spearman, London, published 25 October 1963. Octavo, 215pp, jacket art by Guy Nicholls; on an unclipped example the price is present at the jacket flap. No ISBN. The title page reads 'The Stealer of Souls and other stories' — the '...and other stories' subtitle was imposed by the publisher against Moorcock's wishes. The controlling point is the binding: the first printing is bound in ORANGE cloth/boards with the spine lettered in black; an otherwise identical second printing is bound in GREEN boards. Because the two printings are otherwise indistinguishable, board colour is the test — a green-board copy is a second printing however 'first edition' the copyright page may read.

## Is this the true first?
Census claim confirmed. This is a UK-only hardcover first: the first Elric book published and the first full-length book to appear under Moorcock's name, collecting the first five of the nine Elric novellas from Science Fantasy (June 1961 – April 1964). There is no competing US hardcover. The first American appearance is the Lancer paperback of 1967 (190pp, cover by Jack Gaughan) — a reprint, not a paperback original — and the first UK paperback is Mayflower, December 1968 (173pp, Bob Haberfield cover, reprinted 1969). Only the Spearman 1963 hardcover is the first edition.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
The documented reprint tell is the second printing in green boards, otherwise identical to the orange-board first — the single most important trap on this title. Later omnibus appearances (Elric, 2001; Elric: The Stealer of Souls, 2008) are collections carrying revised and re-collected text, not reissues of the 1963 book; the constituent novellas were separately split into and absorbed by The Weird of the White Wolf and The Bane of the Black Sword (both 1977) in slightly revised form. No book-club edition is documented in the sources consulted.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Stealer of Souls* by Michael Moorcock a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-stealer-of-souls
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.