4 Nathanael West first editions are documented on this shelf, from The Dream Life of Balso Snell (1931) to The Day of the Locust (1939) across 4 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Nathanael West 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 Nathanael West copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.
- The Dream Life of Balso Snell — 1931 · Contact EditionsTrue first is Contact Editions (Robert McAlmon's imprint; place given as Paris, and Paris–New York on the title leaf), 1931 — West's first book and its only printing in his lifetime. Limited to 500 hand-numbered copies; issued in printed paper wrappers with a blue-and-black geometric design and title in black, octavo, ~95 pp, originally in a glassine wrapper. Confirm by the numbered limitation leaf (recorded…. The Paris/New York Contact Editions issue (1931) is the sole true first; there is no separate UK edition and no other printing during West's lifetime. The joint Paris–New York imprint reflects Contact Editions' arrangement; there is no dust jacket beyond the original glassine. None — the 500-copy numbered limitation was the only lifetime printing of this setting; there is no book-club or contemporary trade reissue.
- Miss Lonelyhearts — 1933 · LiverightFirst edition: Liveright, New York, 1933 (published 8 April 1933). Notorious issue history tied to Liveright's bankruptcy: about 2,200 copies were printed but only roughly 800 were shipped to bookshops before the collapse; copies bearing the Liveright imprint and 1933 date are the first issue. The withheld sheets (about 1,400 copies) were reissued in June 1933 by Harcourt, Brace under their own imprint as the…. The Liveright 1933 issue is the true first; the Harcourt, Brace 1933 reissue (Liveright sheets under the Harcourt imprint) is the second issue, and the Greenberg 1934 remainder is the third. A genuine Liveright-imprint copy is far scarcer. Check the title-page imprint: Liveright equals first issue; Harcourt, Brace equals second issue; Greenberg equals third. Later editions are obvious reprints.
- A Cool Million — 1934 · Covici-FriedeTrue first is Covici-Friede (New York), 1934 (full title A Cool Million: The Dismantling of Lemuel Pitkin); first edition, first printing. Publisher's binding is tan cloth lettered in green on the front board and spine, in an orange pictorial dust jacket designed by William Cotton (wraparound image of a youth holding a gun, lettered in black), priced at the flap. A scarce variant is bound in green cloth with a…. US Covici-Friede (1934) is the true first, preceding the first UK/English edition — Neville Spearman (London, 1954) — by two decades; the Spearman issue is in red boards lettered white on the spine. Both are collected, with Covici-Friede the priority. No book-club edition documented in sources consulted; later combined-title reissues (with Miss Lonelyhearts) and New Directions printings are distinct from the 1934 Covici-Friede first.
- The Day of the Locust — 1939 · Random House, New YorkTrue first: Random House, New York, published 16 May 1939, 238 pp., octavo. The first printing is identified by the words 'First Printing' stated on the copyright page — this is the controlling point and is present on the trade first. Bound in red cloth boards with a printed title label to the spine, with a dark topstain. Manufactured by H. Wolff, New York. The first-issue dust jacket has the price present at the…. CENSUS CLAIM CONFIRMED. US Random House (New York, 1939) is the true first. The first English edition is Grey Walls Press, London, 1951 — 207 pp. plus blank, publisher's dark blue cloth lettered in gilt at the spine, issued in dust jacket — published eleven years after the American first and after West's death. Both editions are collected and both should be named. The census's framing of this title as completing…. DOCUMENTED TRAP. Book-club copies of The Day of the Locust are found in an illustrated book-club dust jacket with NO price present at the flap. Because club copies can be jacketed over, or confused with, trade sheets, the jacket alone is not decisive in either direction: a first-printing book is frequently offered in a club jacket, and dealers list such copies openly. Verify the 'First Printing' statement on the….
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