Book club edition marks

How to read it

A book club edition is a printing sold by subscription to members of a club, usually, in the words of the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America (ABAA), an inexpensive reprint on poorer paper and binding. The Independent Online Booksellers Association (IOBA) names the Book-of-the-Month Club (BOMC), the Fireside Book Club, the History Book Club and the Literary Guild among the clubs. The commonest mark on the book itself is the blind stamp: ABC for Book Collectors calls a binding mark blind when it is pressed in with no gold or colour. IOBA describes the book club stamp as a small depression in the lower right-hand corner of the back cover, a circle, dot, square, star, maple leaf or similar shape. The ABAA notes that the most famous club, the Book of the Month Club, began in 1926, and that Carter and Barker’s ABC, which it calls an essential reference for book-trade terminology, has no entry for book club editions at all.

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Marks on the book

Besides the blind stamp, IOBA lists a short string of numbers and capital letters printed vertically near the gutter on one of the last pages, and the ABAA shows a Science Fiction Book Club copy with a gutter mark on the second-to-last page giving the year and month of printing. The ABAA adds that there may be no ISBN or year of publication on the copyright page. IOBA notes that a book club copy is often smaller than the trade edition and on lower quality paper, and some have no headband. Early BOMC editions, before 1930, carried “Book-of-the-Month Club Selection” on the spine.

Marks on the jacket

IOBA and the ABAA both list a dust jacket with no price, and often no barcode, as the commonest sign; the words “Book Club Edition” are often printed on a front flap. IOBA lists books that often have no price on the jacket for other reasons: high-end art books, university press books, textbooks and some small press books. A string of four or five numbers in a box of contrasting colour on the back of the jacket is another club mark, though IOBA notes a few mainstream publishers print boxed numbers on ordinary books too.

Blind stamps that aren’t book club marks

Not every small stamp on the back board is a club’s. IOBA notes that small blind stamps also marked the copies of the extra printing houses that shared in producing a title, and that the club stamp is easily confused with Knopf’s Borzoi dog, the publisher’s own device.

Book clubs and fine presses

The ABAA separates subscription clubs such as BOMC from fine-press publishers such as the Folio Society and the Limited Editions Club, which also reissue earlier books but in high quality materials. IOBA notes that Limited Editions Club books are printed in limited numbers, signed and individually numbered.

When the club came first

Some books were first published by a club. IOBA records that L. W. Currey’s bibliography of science fiction and fantasy marks some first editions as “Issued by the Science Fiction Book Club”, and the ABAA gives the club’s omnibus of Anne McCaffrey’s Harper Hall books (Dragonsong, Dragonsinger and Dragondrums) as their first collected edition.

A club logo on a trade copy

Oprah’s Book Club rarely had special editions printed, the ABAA records: the publishers reprinted the dust jackets of the chosen books with the club’s logo instead.