3 Pearl S. Buck first editions are documented on this shelf, from East Wind: West Wind (1930) to Sons (1932) across 3 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Pearl S. Buck 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 Pearl S. Buck copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.
- East Wind: West Wind — 1930 · The John Day CompanyThe true first is The John Day Company, New York, 1930 — Pearl Buck's first book. John Day's 1930s practice is to place NO edition/printing statement on the first printing while explicitly designating every later printing, so a first is identified by the ABSENCE of any printing statement (only the 1930 date), and reprints are stated ("Second Printing," and observed as far as "Sixth Printing"). The first printing…. US John Day 1930 is the true first (Buck's first book); the UK Methuen edition (1931) follows and is not the first. US precedes. Any copy carrying a stated printing ("Second/Third/…Printing") is a later John Day printing, not the first. Later Grosset & Dunlap and reprint-house editions exist; the Methuen UK issue (1931) is the English follower. No dedicated first-printing jacket point verified.
- The Good Earth — 1931 · John Day CompanyFirst issue has the misprint flees for fleas on page 100, line 17, present in the earliest printings before correction. Copyright page carries the John Day Company imprint with no later-printing reference, in a first-issue jacket. US John Day 1931 is the true first; the flees typo on page 100, line 17 is the defining first-issue point, corrected in later states. The UK Methuen edition followed. Heavily reprinted; book-club and later printings correct the typo and add printing statements. Corrected text plus a printing line means it is not a true first.
- Sons — 1932 · The John Day CompanyNew York: The John Day Company, 1932. The trade first printing is stated, and the wording is unusual and specific: the copyright page reads "First Trade Edition, September, 1932." It says "trade" because a signed limited issue was also published in 1932 (dealer-recorded copies are numbered on a limitation page out of 371 and signed by Buck), so the trade sheets are designated first trade edition rather than first…. US John Day (New York) 1932 is the true first — the second volume of the House of Earth trilogy, following The Good Earth (John Day, 1931). The census claim is confirmed. The first UK edition is Methuen & Co. Ltd, London, 1932, stating "First published in Great Britain 1932" on the copyright page, in brown boards with an embossed front cover and black lettering and design on the spine. Both are collected and both…. No book-club issue of the 1932 John Day printing is documented in the sources consulted. The operative tell is the printing statement: because a second printing appeared in September 1932 as well, a copy lacking the "First Trade Edition, September, 1932" line is not the first trade issue regardless of the 1932 date on the title page. A separate signed-copy trap: the John Day "Selected Works" set (eleven volumes,….
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