The Little Prince

The dominant trap is publisher succession, not a book club: Reynal & Hitchcock was bought by Harcourt, Brace & Company in 1948, which became Harcourt, Brace & World in 1960, and those later printings carry only the 1943 copyright date — they are routinely offered as firsts on the strength of that date alone. Test the imprint, not the date: any Harcourt name on the title or copyright page rules out the first printing. Confirm the last-page colophon is present and the copyright notice carries no edition numbering. In French, later printings lose the p. 63 raven mark from the sixth edition (and it is already inconsistent on the fifth). Cloth colour and jacket artwork are not reliable tells, and jackets on this title are frequently restored or supplied.