Beloved by Toni Morrison, First Edition

The short answer. A true first of Beloved is the Alfred A. Knopf first printing, New York, 1987. It states "First Edition" on the copyright page, carries the Borzoi device on the boards, and wears an unclipped jacket priced $18.95. One thing to know before you start looking: a true first of this title has no number line at all, so its absence proves nothing against your copy.

What a true first edition is

Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1987 — the first printing of the first edition. An octavo in cream cloth boards, silver spine lettering and cover decoration, the Borzoi device on the boards, and the fore-edge untrimmed. The jacket is priced $18.95.

Identification on this title rests on the binding, the device and the jacket rather than on textual variants. There is no famous misprint to hunt for here, which makes the physical checks below the whole of the job — and makes an honest condition assessment the thing that separates two otherwise identical copies.

The points, one at a time

Run these against the book in hand. Each one says what to look at, what a first printing should show, and what it means if yours does not.

1. The stated line. Look at the copyright page. A first printing states "First Edition" there.

2. There is no number line — and that is the point. A true first printing of Beloved does not carry one. Anyone arriving from trade fiction expects a row of digits at the foot of the copyright page and reads their absence as a mark against the copy; here the absence is the expected state, and the stated line at point 1 does that work instead. A line where there should be none is not a verdict on its own, but it is a reason to weigh the rest of this list carefully. How to Read a Number Line covers what settles a printing when there is no line to read — the publisher's own conventions, which is why naming the house comes before everything else.

3. The Borzoi device. Knopf's running-dog device is on the boards of a first printing. Its absence is the single most useful tell against one, for the reason in the next section.

4. The jacket price. $18.95 on an unclipped jacket. Clipping removes the evidence rather than the printing — condition grading covers what that costs. An unpriced or blank jacket points elsewhere, below.

5. The binding and the edges. Cream cloth boards, silver spine lettering and cover decoration, fore-edge untrimmed. A trimmed fore-edge, or thinner and smaller boards, is evidence against this printing.

When it isn't one

A book club edition. For Beloved the tells are specific and they are physical: an unpriced or blank jacket, thinner and smaller boards, and no Borzoi device. That last one is the quick check — the device is on the trade first and not on the club copy. Clubs reprinted trade copyright pages verbatim, so point 1 will not catch one on its own; the object will. The method is in How to Spot a Book Club Edition.

A later printing. With no number line to count down, the stated line at point 1 carries the weight: a later printing does not say "First Edition". This is where copies of this title get misjudged in both directions — put back on the shelf for missing digits that were never there, or bought as firsts on a copyright page nobody read closely. If a later printing is what you have, it is still a first edition; it is simply not the first printing of one, and Points of Issue sets out why those two phrases are not interchangeable.

What it's worth

Not a number on this page. Condition and the jacket move the price of this title far more than the printing alone does, and a figure baked into a guide ages badly. Run the free lookup to see what copies are actually listed for right now, then grade yours honestly against what comes back.

Beloved is one of the sixteen titles in our Removed From Circulation series, which documents the bans themselves rather than the bibliography.