3 A. B. Guthrie Jr. first editions are documented on this shelf, from The Big Sky (1947) to Fair Land, Fair Land (1982) across 3 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that A. B. Guthrie Jr. title from later printings and book-club copies — the publisher and year to expect, the number-line or edition-statement conventions, and the tells that show up in online listings.
Identification only, per the house rule: no prices and no appraisals here. Checking a A. B. Guthrie Jr. copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.
- The Big Sky — 1947 · William Sloane AssociatesFirst edition, first printing with 1947 copyright and no additional-printing statement; published by William Sloane Associates. First-issue dust jacket with front-flap price and no reference to the 1949 sequel 'The Way West' or to the Pulitzer (Guthrie won for The Way West, not this title). US William Sloane Associates (1947) is the true first—the landmark mountain-man Western and first of Guthrie's series. Guthrie's bibliography makes the Sloane first the cornerstone; later Houghton Mifflin issues are reprints. Book-club and later trade reprints lack the Sloane first-issue copyright state; any jacket touting later titles in the series or a different publisher (Houghton Mifflin) is not the 1947 first.
- The Way West — 1949 · William Sloane AssociatesFirst printing under the William Sloane Associates imprint, New York, 1949, with 'first edition' stated and no later-printing statement on the copyright page. Quarter cloth binding with maps of the Independence-to-Oregon route, in the original priced first-issue dust jacket. Sequel to The Big Sky. The US William Sloane Associates 1949 edition is the true first. The novel won the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, so true first-issue jackets predate and do not mention any Pulitzer award. Book-of-the-Month Club editions omit the Sloane first-issue points, are unpriced on the jacket, and carry a blind stamp on the rear board; the priced first-issue jacket without any Pulitzer notice distinguishes the trade first.
- Fair Land, Fair Land — 1982 · Houghton MifflinIndependent dealers who handle the book catalog the first as "First Edition. First Printing," Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1982 (ISBN 0-395-32511-0). By 1982 Houghton Mifflin's documented practice was a descending number line on the copyright page whose lowest digit is 1 on first printings — the number row having replaced the older "First printing" statement in the early 1970s, and typically including a…. US-only first: Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1982 — the census claim is correct, and no UK edition precedes it in the records consulted. Written in English, so no original-language precedence question arises. The census description holds: this is a late bridge volume of the Big Sky sequence, carrying Dick Summers forward from The Big Sky (1947) and The Way West (1949) in internal chronology although written and…. No book-club edition is documented in the sources consulted. Signed copies exist but are author-inscribed trade first printings — Guthrie's inked signature on the dedication page — and not a signed limited issue, so a signature is not an edition point. Later reissues that are "first thus" rather than firsts include a subsequent edition under ISBN 0-89621-417-6 and the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Big Sky reissue….
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