The Rats

The 1974 NEL paperback and its reprints declare their own paperback history on the printer's page (a first paperback issue reads 'First NEL paperback edition November 1974'; a later printing adds a further 'This new edition...' line) — any such line rules the copy out as the hardback first. Later hardback reissues (Hodder, and the Centipede Press 2015 Rats Trilogy) are 'first thus,' not the 1974 first. No UK book-club edition of the 1974 hardback is documented in the sources consulted.