# Is "The Time It Never Rained" by Elmer Kelton a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Time It Never Rained by Elmer Kelton (Doubleday & Company, 1973) is identified by: The first printing states "First Edition" on the copyright page; Doubleday dropped the statement on later printings, so an unstated Doubleday copy is a reprint. US-only true first: Doubleday & Company, Garden City, 1973.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- The first printing states "First Edition" on the copyright page
- Doubleday dropped the statement on later printings, so an unstated Doubleday copy is a reprint
- Collates viii + 373 pages
- ISBN 0-385-05075-5
- LCCN 73-79680
- Issued in publisher's rust-coloured cloth lettered in black on the spine, in a pictorial jacket with the price present at the front flap
- Publisher imprint reads Doubleday & Company

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Elmer Kelton |
| Publisher | Doubleday & Company |
| Year | 1973 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | The first printing states "First Edition" on the copyright page |
| Book-club edition exists? | Yes |

## Points of issue
The first printing states "First Edition" on the copyright page; Doubleday dropped the statement on later printings, so an unstated Doubleday copy is a reprint. Collates viii + 373 pages; ISBN 0-385-05075-5; LCCN 73-79680. Issued in publisher's rust-coloured cloth lettered in black on the spine, in a pictorial jacket with the price present at the front flap. Doubleday additionally stamped a gutter code in the gutter of the last page of text from 1958 to 1987: a letter for the year of manufacture (A=1959, B=1960 and onward, so O=1973 and P=1974) followed by the week number. The gutter code dates a printing but does not by itself establish first-printing status -- dealers report "O50" (week 50 of 1973) copies of this title and describe them as early rather than first printings, and Doubleday used the same codes on its book-club printings. The copyright-page statement is the governing point.

## Is this the true first?
US-only true first: Doubleday & Company, Garden City, 1973. No contemporaneous UK edition traced in the sources consulted. The census claim of "a small genre-imprint printing" is REFUTED: this was not issued under Doubleday's Double D Western imprint -- the Library of Congress record carries no series statement and no dealer description consulted cites that imprint. It was published as a mainstream Doubleday novel. "First thus" traps: the Texas Christian University Press edition of 1984 (the reissue through which the novel is now best known), and the Forge/Tor reprints of 1999 and 2008 -- none is the first.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Doubleday book-club printings of the period omit the "First Edition" statement and are typically smaller, on thinner paper in cheaper bindings, with a blind stamp or dot at the lower right of the rear board and a jacket without a price at the flap; Doubleday's own clubs (Literary Guild, Mystery Guild, Science Fiction Book Club) additionally carry a five-digit code, frequently as black numbers in a white block. Critically, the gutter code appears on club printings as well as trade printings and therefore does not distinguish them.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Time It Never Rained* by Elmer Kelton a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-time-it-never-rained
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.