A Personal Matter (個人的な体験 / Kojinteki na taiken)

The true first edition is the 1964 Japanese Kojinteki na taiken (Shinchōsha, Tokyo, August 1964) — the copy serious Ōe collectors pursue, and his first novel drawn directly from the birth of his son Hikari. Note that Ōe himself frames his career around two novels, this and The Silent Cry (万延元年のフットボール, 1967), which some rank as his masterpiece; but A Personal Matter is the more internationally famous title and the first Ōe translated into English, so it is the defensible signature work. The first English-language edition is A Personal Matter, translated by John Nathan (Grove Press, New York, 1968): brown cloth, gilt-lettered spine, x + 214 pp., color pictorial dust jacket by Kuhlman Associates, the printed price on the flap. It preceded the first UK edition (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1969). On the Grove first, printing status is noted on the copyright page and, per Grove practice, later-printing dust jackets carry a small letter code (e.g., "ii," "iii") on the rear panel — a true first jacket lacks that code; the practical tells are the unclipped the printed price jacket with no rear-panel letter code plus the copyright-page first-printing indication.