Jurassic Park - Crichton

A newbie here but need some help. Recently bought two different copies
of Crichton's Jurassic Park. Now I need to find out which is a first
edition and which is a first edition book club printed. The major
difference is size. I will describe both:

Larger Book:
Inside jacket has Price listed.
Inside jacket has "A Literary Guild Main Selection"
Copyright page states "First Trade Edition"
Copyright page states "A signed first edition of this book has been
privately printed by The Franklin Library."
Book bind press present

Smaller Book:
Inside jacket has NO Book Price listed
Copyright page states no edition discription
Book bind press not present

I suspect that the smaller book is the book club edition which is
counter to everything list on the internet on identifying these types
of book. But can anybody help confirm.

Thanks

lalatin wrote:
> A newbie here but need some help. Recently bought two different copies
> of Crichton's Jurassic Park. Now I need to find out which is a first
> edition and which is a first edition book club printed. The major
> difference is size. I will describe both:
>
> Larger Book:
> Inside jacket has Price listed.
> Inside jacket has "A Literary Guild Main Selection"
> Copyright page states "First Trade Edition"
> Copyright page states "A signed first edition of this book has been
> privately printed by The Franklin Library."
> Book bind press present
>
> Smaller Book:
> Inside jacket has NO Book Price listed
> Copyright page states no edition discription
> Book bind press not present
>
> I suspect that the smaller book is the book club edition which is
> counter to everything list on the internet on identifying these types
> of book. But can anybody help confirm.
>
> Thanks


The smaller book is a book club edition. The larger book
may or may not be a "first printing", even though it may be
a "first edition". Each edition may have one or more
printing. The Knopf book should have a line under the
"First Trade Edition" that reads something like: ABCDE.
That indicate the printing. If the "A" is there it is a
first printing. If it starts with a "B", it is a second
printing of the first edition, and would be worth
considerably less than a first printing of the first edition.

What do you mean, it is counter to everything on the
internet identifying these types of books?


Francis A. Miniter