3 John Williams first editions are documented on this shelf, from Butcher's Crossing (1960) to Augustus (1972) across 3 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that John Williams 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 John Williams copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.
- Butcher's Crossing — 1960 · The Macmillan Company, New YorkTrue first: The Macmillan Company, New York, 1960; collation [vi], [2], 3-239 pp. First printing is so stated on the copyright page. Bound in original half crimson/red cloth over grey paper-covered boards, stamped in silver (Bauman describes the same binding as 'red and gray cloth'). The first-state pictorial dust jacket is by Gilbert Etheredge and shows a buffalo and crossed guns; the price is present at the…. CENSUS CLAIM CORRECTED. The census asserted the US Macmillan 1960 is 'the only first that matters'; this overlooks a genuine British edition. Victor Gollancz, London, published Butcher's Crossing in 1960 as the first English edition, and it is separately collected. Both should be named: Macmillan (New York, 1960) is the accepted true first; Gollancz (London, 1960) is the first English edition. Month-level…. No book-club tells for the 1960 Macmillan printing were documented in the sources consulted. The reliable discriminator remains the copyright-page first-printing statement together with the Etheredge first-state jacket; later NYRB Classics and Vintage Classics printings are trade reissues under their own imprints and are not confusable with the 1960 sheets.
- Stoner — 1965 · The Viking Press, New YorkTrue first: The Viking Press, New York, published 23 April 1965, 278 pp., octavo. Bound in quarter marigold (yellow) cloth over chocolate-brown paper-covered boards, stamped in brown; dealers describe the cloth variously as 'quarter marigold' or 'half yellow', which are the same binding described differently. First printing is so stated on the copyright page; there is no number line on this printing, so the…. CENSUS CLAIM CORRECTED. The census gave the UK first as 'Longmans 1966'; this is unsupported and appears to be an error. The first British edition is Allen Lane, London, 1973 — eight years after Viking — and is reported by British dealers as scarcer than the American first. Both are collected: Viking (New York, 1965) is unambiguously the true first; Allen Lane (London, 1973) is the first English edition. The 1972…. No book-club edition tells for the 1965 Viking printing were documented in the sources consulted; given the very small trade printing and poor sales, no contemporaneous US book-club issue was identified. Treat any copy in the Viking binding without the copyright-page first-printing statement as a later printing rather than assuming a club issue.
- Augustus — 1972 · The Viking PressTrue first is The Viking Press (New York), 1972; the copyright page reads 'First published in 1972 by The Viking Press, Inc.' with no additional-printing line or impression notice. Bound in maroon/brick-red paper-covered boards with a green cloth spine stamped in copper (gilt), and pictorial map endpapers of the Roman Empire at the death of Augustus (A.D. 14). A recognized first-printing point: the rear…. US Viking (1972) is the true first and precedes the first UK edition, Allen Lane (London, 1973, ISBN 071390545X, Sheila Gill jacket). Augustus shared the 1973 National Book Award for Fiction with John Barth's Chimera; both US and UK issues are collected, with Viking the priority. No book-club issue documented in sources consulted. Reprint tell: later Viking printings state additional printings on the copyright page and the jacket carries more than the single Orville Prescott review.
More Literary Fiction (US) & Award Winners shelves: John Wyndham, Jonathan Franzen, Jonathan Lethem, Jonathan Ryder (Robert Ludlum pseudonym), Jonathan Safran Foer, Joseph Conrad.
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