Fly-by-night: Export - Edition, Impression, Issue or State? Part II

Monday 21 June 2010

Export - Edition, Impression, Issue or State? Part II

Part I provided definitions for each of the four terms used to bibliographically classify a book. Here is the classification of an Export Publishing Enterprises Ltd book, Overnight Escapade and other stories by Stephen Mark.

There are six variants of this title:

the first two are variants of News Stand Library (NSL) number 105 published for sale in Canada,
the third through fifth are variants of the US series NSL number 24A issued without a dust jacket,
the sixth is NSL number 24A with a dust jacket.

Differences in the wraps:

The front and back covers are identical except the third of the 24A variants which has black type on the back cover instead of the blue used on the other five. The second and third variants for 24A have dresses more orange than the red seen on the other four variants. The spine on the 105 variants are identical. The 24A variants replace "105" with "24A" at the top and "MDS" with "KN" at the bottom. The variants for 24A are identical except the third replaces the blue with black ink. The title is orange/orange red in the 24A variants and red in the 105 variants.

The inside covers have the same pattern but different colours. The 105 variants have slate blue and light blue. The 24A variants have light blue and blue.

Differences in the text:

All variants have an April 1950 printing date. The 105 variants are identical except one variant has "COPYRIGHT 1950" missing from the copyright page. The 24A variants have different page collations from 105 with different page numbers missing. There are three different page collations within 24A. Otherwise the text is identical.

So what do we have here. With the exception of the numbering differences the text block is identical. The conclusion is that the type was not reset so all six variants are the same edition. There is no publisher statement that any of the variants are different impressions as all have a April 1950 print date. In the absence of any evidence I conclude that all six variants are the same impression.

An issue "is a group of published copies of an impression which constitutes a consciously planned publishing unit, distinguishable from other groups of published copies of the impression by one or more differences designed expressly to identify the group as a discrete unit." Differences in the wraps (covers) are considered. Here then we have three issues:

issue 1 - number 105 for sale in Canada,
issue 2 - number 24A for sale in the US without a DJ,
issue 3 - number 24A for sale in the US with a DJ.

A state is defined as a "copy or group of copies of a printed sheet or a publisher's casing (i.e.: covers) which differs from other copies of that sheet or casing in any respect which the publisher does not wish to call to the attention of the public as representing a discreet publishing effort." Usually states result from error or the correction of error. None of the remaining differences in the six variants create states.

To sum up - one edition with one impression and three issues.