Ramsey Campbell First Editions

• The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants — 1964 · Arkham House: Publishers, Sauk City, WisconsinArkham House, Sauk City, 1964, in a single print run of 2,009 copies; Arkham never reprinted the title, so no second printing of this text in this form exists and every copy of the 1964 book is a first. No statement of printing appears on the copyright page (confirmed by L.W. Currey, ABAA) — the absence of a printing statement is itself the expected state, not a defect. Octavo, cloth-bound, xii + 207 pp., with…. US precedence with no competing edition: a British author's debut published by a Wisconsin small press, with no contemporaneous UK edition of the 1964 text. Two 'first thus' traps to reject: Cold Print (Scream/Press, US, 1985) reprints the collection with three stories omitted, and the Headline (UK, 1993) expanded Cold Print restores them — both are reprint gatherings, not this book. PS Publishing (UK, 2011)…. Arkham House did not issue book-club editions and did not reprint this title, so there is no book-club or later-Arkham state to confuse with the first — the 2,009-copy run is the whole of it. The reprint states to watch are the Scream/Press 1985 and Headline 1993 Cold Print gatherings and the PS Publishing 2011 expanded reissue. A price-clipped jacket is a condition matter on Arkham books, not a book-club tell.
• Demons by Daylight — 1973 · Arkham House, Sauk City, WisconsinArkham House first editions of this era carry no printing statement, so identification is by publisher practice and colophon: with the sole exception of the collected works of H. P. Lovecraft, Arkham House did not reprint its titles, and through the late 1970s always placed a colophon (the Frank Utpatel design of 1944) at the back of each book, where any reprint would have been noted. A first is therefore an…. The census claim is confirmed as to precedence — Arkham House, Sauk City, 1973 is the true first and the only hardcover of the original text — but its wording that this is the "only edition" is wrong. The collection was reprinted twice in paperback, and no earlier or simultaneous UK edition is documented in the sources consulted. The important "first thus" trap is the Jove/HBJ paperback of May 1979, which is not…. Arkham House titles were not issued through book clubs and no book-club printing is documented, so the usual blind-stamp/unpriced-jacket checks do not arise here. The live trap is the jacket rather than the book: because the Arkham first is unmarked and the printing was small, facsimile dust jackets for Demons by Daylight are commercially available and are sometimes supplied to jacketless copies — inspect the….
• The Doll Who Ate His Mother — 1976 · Bobbs-MerrillUS Bobbs-Merrill first hardcover, published in Indianapolis and New York in 1976 (Campbell's first novel), issued in boards with a priced dust jacket bearing the subtitle 'A Novel of Modern Terror.' The first-state jacket on this title is prone to lamination curl at the edges, so the printed price should be present on the flap but the flaps often show short closed tears from that curl. No later-printing line…. The US Bobbs-Merrill 1976 hardcover is the true first edition; the UK Millington hardcover is the UK first. Campbell's debut novel, preceded only by his short-fiction collections. No prominent book-club edition; the trap is the later paperback issues (UK Star, 1978, and subsequent US mass-market). Verify the Bobbs-Merrill imprint, the 1976 date, and the 'A Novel of Modern Terror' subtitle on the jacket.

More Fantasy & Horror shelves: Richard Bachman (Stephen King), Richard Laymon, Richard Matheson, Robert Aickman, Robert Bloch, Robert Jordan.

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