4 Tim O'Brien first editions are documented on this shelf, from Dispatches — deeper Vietnam: Tim O'Brien, If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home (memoir) (1973) to The Things They Carried (1990) across 3 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Tim O'Brien 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 Tim O'Brien copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.
- Dispatches — deeper Vietnam: Tim O'Brien, If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home (memoir) — 1973 · Delacorte Press / Seymour LawrenceDelacorte/Seymour Lawrence hardcover, 1973, with a stated 'First printing' on the copyright page. First-issue dust jacket carries the printed price. Later printings drop the 'First printing' statement. This is O'Brien's first book (a memoir). The US Delacorte/Seymour Lawrence edition and the UK Calder & Boyars edition both appeared in 1973 and are generally treated as simultaneous; the US edition does not clearly precede the UK. The US Delacorte is the collected American first. No book-club issue of note for the first; later printings drop the stated 'First printing.' The stated 'First printing' plus the printed-price jacket identifies the US first.
- Northern Lights — 1975 · Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence, New YorkFirst printing: per the Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence convention of the period the copyright page states "First printing" with no later printing indicated — a copy naming any subsequent printing is not a first. Binding is a dark blue cloth backstrip over purple/lilac paper-covered boards, the spine lettered in silver and purple, with purple endpapers; 8vo, 356 pp. (one dealer loosely reads the dark blue…. US Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence (New York, August 1975) is the true first — the census claim holds. The first British edition followed from Calder & Boyars (London, 1976), carrying the 1975 copyright; the UK hardback issue is reported at roughly 900 copies and is uncommon in its own right, so both editions are collected — name both. The census description of this as O'Brien's first novel is correct but needs…. No book-club edition documented for the 1975 Delacorte issue. Reprint tell: any printing statement on the copyright page other than "First printing." Later editions to know: the Dell mass-market paperback (ISBN 0440066646) and the 1999 Broadway Books reissue are reprints. Because the book is perfect-bound and cheaply made, condition flaws — cracked or separated text block, toned board edges, foxed fore-edge — are….
- Going After Cacciato — 1978 · Delacorte Press / Seymour Lawrence'First Printing' stated on the copyright page; issued under the Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence imprint, New York, 1978. Light green cloth boards with the author's facsimile signature stamped in gilt at the foot of the front board; dust jacket carries the printed price on the front flap. The US Delacorte/Seymour Lawrence hardcover is the true first. It won the National Book Award for Fiction announced in 1979 for the 1978 publication. The Jonathan Cape UK edition follows. The book-club edition is smaller, has a blind stamp to the rear board, and its jacket lacks a printed price and is marked as a book-club issue on the flap.
- The Things They Carried — 1990 · Houghton Mifflin / Seymour Lawrence, BostonFirst trade edition (Houghton Mifflin / Seymour Lawrence, Boston, 1990): ISBN 0-395-51598-X; 8vo, [14], 273, [1] pp; first printing carries the full number line 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 on the copyright page — any line missing the 1 is a later printing. The jacket has two states and the first-issue jacket is the point: the spine title is printed slightly off-centre / off-register, '0390' appears at the foot of the…. CENSUS CLAIM CORRECTED. The census names Houghton Mifflin/Seymour Lawrence as the first without qualification, but two independent dealers state the Franklin Library signed edition was issued before the trade edition — Rulon-Miller Books catalogues the Houghton Mifflin explicitly as 'first trade edition. A signed edition was previously issued by the Franklin Library,' and dealer consensus on the Franklin Library…. No trade book-club variant is documented for this title in the sources consulted. The Franklin Library leatherbound is a separate signed issue, not a book-club reprint, and should not be described as one. Reprint tell for the trade edition: a number line no longer ending in 1. Jacket tell: a centred spine title marks the second-issue jacket, which is frequently married to first-printing sheets.
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