First Edition Books

The first edition is a book's first printing run. For some titles, this can be as many as 50,000 copies. But for older books, or books originally published by small imprints, the first run may have been as few as 100 copies. First editions often gain value if the book was changed for the second printing, e.g. with new prefaces or chapters, or text corrections. Note that some first editions are hard to distinguish from subsequent printings, especially in older books.