3 Shel Silverstein first editions are documented on this shelf, from The Giving Tree (1964) to A Light in the Attic (1981) across 2 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Shel Silverstein 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 Shel Silverstein copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.
- The Giving Tree — 1964 · Harper & RowFirst edition states a Harper code on the copyright page; first-issue dust jacket with its printed price with no Caldecott/award mention. Earliest issue has the green cloth-textured boards / first-state binding and the jacket spine without later award blurbs. The book block is undated by reprint line on the first. US Harper & Row is the true first. Jacket price (the printed price) and the absence of later printing statements/award blurbs are the practical first-issue markers, as the book was a slow seller initially and early printings are scarce. Book-club editions lack the jacket price and the Harper code, carry a blind-stamp on the rear board, and use the later printing's jacket blurbs touting its popularity.
- Where the Sidewalk Ends — 1974 · Harper & RowFirst edition: Harper & Row 1974; copyright page bears the Harper code and full number line; first-issue dust jacket with its printed price (and the printed price library) with no later-printing statement. First-state binding in the textured boards. US Harper & Row is the true first. Identification rests on the Harper copyright-page code/number line and the printed price first-issue jacket price. Book-club editions lack the price and Harper code, are reduced in size, and carry a board blind-stamp; later printings advance the number line.
- A Light in the Attic — 1981 · Harper & RowThe first printing states "FIRST EDITION" on the copyright page with no later printings listed — that statement is what governs. Bound in publisher's gray cloth over boards, the spine and front cover stamped (dealers describe the stamping variously as gilt or silver) with Silverstein's facsimile signature on the front board; octavo, roughly 9 x 7 inches, pagination cited as 167 text pages plus index leaves…. US-only true first: Harper & Row (Junior Books), New York, 1981. No UK or other edition precedes it, and no earlier appearance of the collection is documented. The collected issue is the trade binding, ISBN 0-06-025673-7; a reinforced library binding at ISBN 0-06-025674-5 exists and is not the collected trade first. Later HarperCollins reissues of the title are "first thus.". No book-club issue is documented in the sources consulted (dealers habitually certify copies as "not a book club edition" without describing a club state). The reprint tells that are documented: the library-binding ISBN 0-06-025674-5, and later printings that omit the FIRST EDITION statement while still wearing a "0981"-coded jacket. When the jacket and copyright page disagree, the copyright page decides.
More Children's & YA shelves: Susan Cooper, Suzanne Collins, Virginia Hamilton, Virginia Lee Burton, William Steig, A. A. Milne (illustrated by E. H. Shepard).
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