3 Primo Levi first editions are documented on this shelf, from If This Is a Man (1947) to The Periodic Table (1984) across 3 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Primo Levi 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.
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- If This Is a Man — 1947 · Francesco De Silva, TurinItalian true first: Se questo è un uomo, Francesco De Silva, Turin, published 11 October 1947 in the series Biblioteca Leone Ginzburg (subtitled "Documenti e studi di storia contemporanea"), directed by Franco Antonicelli. 198 pp.; the cover reproduces a graphically retouched Goya drawing (no. 49 from Álbum C, "La misma", 1808–14). Print run 2,500 copies, of which about 1,500 sold, mostly in Turin. Because there…. The census claim is confirmed on the Italian first and corrected on the English imprint: the sources consulted place the 1959 Orion Press first English edition in New York, and no separate simultaneous London issue is documented among them — cite it as New York rather than "New York/London". Two traps attach to this title. First, the Einaudi edition of 1958 is the revised "definitive" text and is a first thus,…. No book-club issue of the De Silva 1947 edition is documented; the edition was small and provincial. The documented tells are editorial rather than mechanical: any Einaudi imprint (1958 onward) is the revised text, and any copy titled "Survival in Auschwitz" is a later American issue of the Woolf translation. Later Orion Press and subsequent American printings likewise post-date the 1959 first English edition.
- If This Is a Man (US: Survival in Auschwitz; Se questo è un uomo) — 1947 · Francesco De SilvaTurin: Francesco De Silva, published 11 October 1947 in 2,500 copies, under Franco Antonicelli as publisher and series director (Antonicelli chose the final title). Issued in the series "Biblioteca Leone Ginzburg" — documenti e studi di storia contemporanea — as number 3; the series line is a primary identification point. 198 pp., in publisher's wrappers with a typographic device and titles printed in red to the…. Italian-original precedence; the census claim of De Silva (Turin), 1947, 2,500 copies, is correct on every count. The principal trap is the far commoner Turin: Einaudi, 1958 edition (in the "Saggi" series, first printing of 2,000 copies followed by a second of the same size). Einaudi had rejected the book in 1947; Levi signed with them in 1955 and the text was enriched with new episodes before the 1958…. No book-club issue is documented for the 1947 De Silva in the sources consulted. The 1961 Collier Books paperback is a mass-market retitling of the same Woolf translation, not a new text, and is a reprint. Later Einaudi issues — Saggi, Super ET, ET Scrittori, the school editions and the omnibus pairing with La tregua — are all reprints or "first thus" repackagings of the 1958 revised text and carry modern ISBNs.….
- The Periodic Table — 1984 · Schocken BooksNew York: Schocken Books, 1984 — the first English-language edition, translated by Raymond Rosenthal. Octavo; blue cloth boards stamped in silver on the spine; the first printing carries the complete number line 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 on the copyright page. Illustrated dust jacket with the printed price present at the front flap; pagination [8], 3-233, [1] pp. Later printings raise the low digit of the number line…. The true first of the work overall is the Italian 'Il sistema periodico' (Turin: Einaudi, 1975). The first edition in English is the US Schocken Books edition of 1984 (trans. Raymond Rosenthal); the UK Michael Joseph edition followed in 1985 — so Schocken, not Michael Joseph, is the first English-language appearance. Do not conflate the 1984 US and 1985 UK years. For the English-language first, the US Schocken 1984 precedes the UK Michael Joseph 1985. No book-club issue is documented as a trap here; the reprint tells are the raised low digit of the number line and added impression statements on later Schocken printings.
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