How to Identify a Charles Scribner's Sons First Edition

How to identify a first printing

• PRE-1930 (seal + date convention): First printings carry the Scribner seal (the round press device) on the copyright page together with the month-and-year date of publication; the title-page date generally matches the copyright date, and later printings were usually — though not invariably — noted. There is no 'A' in this era, so its absence on a pre-1930 book is normal and does not condemn the copy.
• 1930–c.1973/74 (the classic Scribner 'A'): A capital letter 'A' printed on the copyright page is Scribner's first-printing designator throughout this period. It is frequently accompanied by the Scribner seal and, on many titles, by a code giving the month/year of publication and the book's manufacturer. Later printings drop the 'A' or advance the letter (a 'B', etc.), so a bare copyright page or a 'B' means it is not a first printing. (Sources bracket the end of 'A' use variously as 1973 or 'sometime before 1976' — treat the exact cutoff as soft and settle borderline titles per-title.)
• 1930–c.1973/74 (the 'A' is necessary but NOT always sufficient): For at least some high-demand titles the 'A' alone does not prove a Scribner first, because a book-club run could reproduce an 'A'-marked copyright page. The safe test is BOTH the 'A' AND the Scribner seal on the copyright page, with no book-club tells on the boards (see notablePoints for the Old Man and the Sea case).
• c.1974–1980s (number line replaces the 'A'): Scribner retired the 'A' in the mid-1970s and adopted a copyright-page number line. The lowest digit present indicates the printing, so a '1' still in the line signals a first printing; a missing '1' means a later printing. Some titles in the transition may still carry a seal.
• 1970s–1990s (the distinctive Scribner line with an EMBEDDED manufacturer code): Scribner's number line is idiosyncratic — it carries a letter/slash manufacturer-and-binding code set in the MIDDLE of the digits (e.g. 'F/C', 'H/C'), as in '1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 F/C' (the pattern seen on Barry Lopez's Arctic Dreams). The '1' at the head = first printing; the embedded code is a Scribner house fingerprint, NOT a printing indicator.
• Mid-1990s–present (post Simon & Schuster integration, singular 'Scribner'): First printings show a number line that still CONTAINS the '1' — commonly the ascending-odd/descending-even form '1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2' (verified on Angela's Ashes, Falling Man, Jarhead, All the Light We Cannot See). When the '1' is gone, the copy is a later printing. From this era Scribner also pairs the line with an explicit statement such as 'First Scribner edition [Month Year]' or 'First Scribner hardcover edition [Month Year]' (e.g. 'First Scribner hardcover edition May 2014' on All the Light We Cannot See); the statement plus a '1'-bearing line together confirm the first printing.
• CROSS-CHECK RULE (Zempel/McBride): Establish the era first (pre-1930 seal+date; 1930–c.1973/74 'A'; mid-1970s-on number line), then verify the specific title's known first-printing points in Zempel & Verkler, 'First Editions: A Guide to Identification,' and Bill McBride's 'A Pocket Guide to the Identification of First Editions.' Scribner is one of the harder houses because its practice was never perfectly regular, so the house convention sets the printing state and the per-title bibliography settles edge cases and boundary years.

Notable points & cautions

• THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA trap (1952): The Book-of-the-Month-Club copy is bound in similar blue cloth AND its copyright page also carries the 'A' — so the 'A' alone does NOT make it a Scribner first. Distinguish the true first by the PRESENCE of the Scribner SEAL below the 'A' on the copyright page and the ABSENCE of a book-club tell: the BOMC copy lacks the seal and shows a small (~1mm) circular blind stamp on the rear board (lower corner near the spine). Note this is the ONE identifier where the club device is a blind stamp and the Scribner mark (the seal) is the house press device — do not swap the two.
• The seal alone is NOT proof of a first: the Scribner press device (seal) can appear on the copyright page of later printings and reprints as a house mark. For 1930–c.1973/74 books the seal must be paired with the 'A'; for pre-1930 books it must be paired with matching title/copyright dates. A lone seal is not a first-printing point.
• Do not read the embedded number-line code as a printing or book-club mark: the mid-line letter/slash code (e.g. 'F/C', 'H/C') is Scribner's manufacturer-and-binding designator and says nothing about which printing you hold — the printing is read only from whether the '1' (or the lowest digit) is still present in the line.
• Era-boundary ambiguity (early-to-mid 1970s): the change from the 'A' to the number line was gradual, not instantaneous, and sources bracket it differently (1973 vs. 'before 1976'). For a book straddling the boundary, treat EITHER a lone 'A' (older plates/stock) OR a '1'-bearing number line as a candidate first and settle it against the title's entry in McBride/Zempel.
• Ownership shifts change the imprint line, not the point system: after the Atheneum merger (1978), absorption into Macmillan (1984), and becoming a Simon & Schuster imprint (1994), the copyright-page convention remained the number line (lowest digit = printing), now usually with a 'First Scribner edition/First Scribner hardcover edition' statement — so modern singular-'Scribner' (S&S) firsts are read by the number line + statement, not by the old 'A'.

Imprints

First editions also appear under: Scribner (modern Simon & Schuster imprint spelling, singular, 1994–present), Scribner Classics, Scribner Paperback Fiction. Each generally follows the house convention above.

Frequently asked questions

How do I know if my Charles Scribner's Sons book is a first edition?

Check the copyright page. PRE-1930 (seal + date convention): First printings carry the Scribner seal (the round press device) on the copyright page together with the month-and-year date of publication; the title-page date generally matches the copyright date, and later printings were usually — though not invariably — noted. There is no 'A' in this era, so its absence on a pre-1930 book is normal and does not condemn the copy. 1930–c.1973/74 (the classic Scribner 'A'): A capital letter 'A' printed on the copyright page is Scribner's first-printing designator throughout this period. It is frequently accompanied by the Scribner seal and, on many titles, by a code giving the month/year of publication and the book's manufacturer. Later printings drop the 'A' or advance the letter (a 'B', etc.), so a bare copyright page or a 'B' means it is not a first printing. (Sources bracket the end of 'A' use variously as 1973 or 'sometime before 1976' — treat the exact cutoff as soft and settle borderline titles per-title.)

Does Charles Scribner's Sons use a number line?

1930–c.1973/74 (the classic Scribner 'A'): A capital letter 'A' printed on the copyright page is Scribner's first-printing designator throughout this period. It is frequently accompanied by the Scribner seal and, on many titles, by a code giving the month/year of publication and the book's manufacturer. Later printings drop the 'A' or advance the letter (a 'B', etc.), so a bare copyright page or a 'B' means it is not a first printing. (Sources bracket the end of 'A' use variously as 1973 or 'sometime before 1976' — treat the exact cutoff as soft and settle borderline titles per-title.)

Is a book-club edition a Charles Scribner's Sons first edition?

No. Book-club editions reprint the text but are not the true first edition. THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA trap (1952): The Book-of-the-Month-Club copy is bound in similar blue cloth AND its copyright page also carries the 'A' — so the 'A' alone does NOT make it a Scribner first. Distinguish the true first by the PRESENCE of the Scribner SEAL below the 'A' on the copyright page and the ABSENCE of a book-club tell: the BOMC copy lacks the seal and shows a small (~1mm) circular blind stamp on the rear board (lower corner near the spine). Note this is the ONE identifier where the club device is a blind stamp and the Scribner mark (the seal) is the house press device — do not swap the two.

What era does this cover?

This covers Charles Scribner's Sons (1846–present (independent trade house until the 1978 Atheneum merger and 1984 absorption into Macmillan; the trade list became a Simon & Schuster imprint, "Scribner," from 1994)). Conventions changed over time, so confirm the era of your copy.