Heart-Shaped Box

No book-club edition is documented; dealers routinely note first printings as 'not book club.' The practical traps are (a) later Morrow printings — a second printing was announced 14 April 2007 and released that May — which are physically indistinguishable from the first apart from the number line; (b) the UK Gollancz first, which is a legitimate first UK edition but is often offered as 'the' first edition; and (c) the 2011 Subterranean and 2022 Lividian limiteds, which are signed, numbered and handsome, and are the most frequently mistaken-for-first states in the trade. On any suspect copy the standard quick checks apply — a blind stamp on the rear board and an unpriced jacket flap point away from a trade first printing.