3 Frank Norris first editions are documented on this shelf, from Moran of the Lady Letty: A Story of Adventure off the California Coast (1898) to The Octopus: A Story of California (1901) across 2 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Frank Norris 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 Frank Norris copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.
- Moran of the Lady Letty: A Story of Adventure off the California Coast — 1898 · Doubleday & McClure Co.Norris's first published novel, appearing in book form in 1898 following serialization in The Wave. First edition (BAL 15029) bound in original green cloth, spine and front cover lettered in yellow with additional decoration blocked in blind. A British edition, retitled Shanghaied: A Story of Adventure off the California Coast, followed in 1899. The true first edition is the 1898 Doubleday & McClure Co. (New York) printing. The British edition was retitled Shanghaied: A Story of Adventure off the California Coast and published in London by Grant Richards in 1899 (reviewed that March in The Spectator); it followed, not preceded, the American book.
- McTeague: A Story of San Francisco — 1899 · Doubleday & McClure Co.First issue is identified by the word 'moment' as the final word on page 106; the second issue instead ends that page with 'him.' The first issue is bound in red cloth decorated and lettered in white on the upper cover and spine; octavo, 442 pages plus advertisements. The novel is considered a landmark of American literary naturalism and was adapted into Erich von Stroheim's celebrated 1924 silent film Greed. The true first edition is the 1899 Doubleday & McClure Co. (New York) printing, first issue (page 106 ending in 'moment'). English publisher Grant Richards required Norris to rewrite a chapter 6 passage concerning the heroine's young brother before issuing the British edition, so the unrevised chapter 6 wording is unique to the American printing. The Grant Richards-mandated revision to the chapter 6 passage became the standard printed text; Norris's original wording was not restored in newly printed editions until 1941.
- The Octopus: A Story of California — 1901 · Doubleday, PageFirst edition, first state published by Doubleday, Page & Co., New York, 1901 (BAL 15036; McElrath A6.I.a). The defining first-state point is on p. 526, where a line is accidentally repeated — line 31 recurs as line 35, 'prolonged, rasping sound of breathing, half choked' — with the leaf integral/uncanceled; later states correct or cancel this. The copyright page bears the J. J. Little & Co. printer's device, and…. US precedes UK: Doubleday, Page (New York), 1901 is the true first; Grant Richards issued the London edition later in 1901 (September), and a Tauchnitz continental edition also followed. The American Doubleday, Page printing is the collected first. Beware later Doubleday reprints from the same setting and the 1901 second state with the p. 526 line corrected or the leaf cancelled; only the integral, uncorrected p. 526 leaf paired with the sans-serif spine imprint is the true first state.
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