UK 1st/1st of The Shining - different 'states'?

[biomieg]

Hi guys, I posted this over at the TDT forums and I thought I'd give it a try here as well.

I have a question about the UK 1st/1st of The Shining. I have two copies of this book. Both have the exact same copyright page (with no reprints stated), dust jacket, gutter code etcetera. And yet yesterday I found out that the books themselves (underneath the dust jacket) look completely different! How is this possible? Anyone have an idea? Is one of them not a 1st/1st? But why, then, is everything exactly the same except the boards of the books (and they also differ in size a tiny bit)?



I should add that the black book came with a priceclipped DJ. Not sure if this means anything in this context, though.

[e_taylor]

The black one is definitely a 1st. Not sure what the deal is with the blue boards though.

[ur2ndbiggestfan]

Just an educated guess, but the blue covers look like a "BOOK CLUB" edition.

[biomieg]

Just an educated guess, but the blue covers look like a "BOOK CLUB" edition.

I'm not inclined to think so... the UK Book Club editions that I know of don't carry the name of the original publisher on the spine, and they definitely don't have the exact same copyright page. Also, the UK BCEs are significantly smaller than the trade editions. Last but not least, the dust jacket of these two books is exactly the same (and the pricelipped DJ was actually on the black book, which is presumed to be the real 1st/1st).

On the TDT forum, Mr. Rabbit Trick suggested that the blue book may be a rebound library copy. That's a possibility I didn't think of. I have no clue how common it is (was) for libraries to rebind books; here in Holland dustjackets are simply laminated/glued to the book.

Any other suggestions?

[TheCollector]

A library copy eh? That sure was comon enough when I was growing up. Here would be my thoughts on that.

#1) Whenever I saw a rebound library copy the DJ was typically missing. All I got was the rebound book.

#2) If it was a library copy there should be some indication in the book. A torn out pocket in the back for the checkin/checkout card, a barcode, stamp or other writing.

Of course, another posibility is that someone put a 1st edition DJ on this blue board book at some point....aka the DJ and book don't actually belong together.

[biomieg]

There are absolutely no ex-library marks (otherwise I would have seen this immediately when I first got the book). Oh well.... maybe we'll never know. I'm just going to keep both books. I remain curious to see whether there's more of these blue-boarded copies floating around...