The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

Collecting The First Edition

Identifying the First Edition:

There are only two things that you have to know to insure that you are buying a true First Edition in dustjacket (aka first printing) of The Da Vinci Code.

On the copyright page (backside of the titlepage), there must be the words "First Edition" and a numberline reading as follows:  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1.  The "1" in the numberline must be present;

and

There must be a price on the top center of the front dustjacket flap of "U.S. $24.95/Canada $37.95".

Important Note:  If the book that you are considering doesn't have a dustjacket, then you must take one additional step to verify that it is a collectible First Edition. -  Measure the book.  The authentic First Edition  is 9 1/2 inches tall.  The book club edition is 8 1/2 inches tall.  -   Please scroll down to the last section of this buying guide for more information on How To Tell The Difference Between Book Club Edition Copies Of This Book And First Edition Copies.

Size of the First Printing (Is it Rare?):

In pre-publication announcements, Doubleday stated that there would be 85,000 copies in the first printing.  Numerous newspapers and other publications quoted the announced 85,000 number in articles printed then and subsequently.

However Doubleday actually printed over 218,000 copies in the first printing, as was reported in the March 31, 2003 issue of Publishers Weekly. 

Doubleday had initially printed 5000 copies of the ARC (Advance Reading Copy)*.  But after explosive interest by booksellers and reviewers, Doubleday went back to press and printed another 4,500 ARC's, and substantially increased the planned size of the first printing.

*Advance Reading Copies are sent to critics, reviewers, and booksellers to promote a book, before it is actually published and available for purchase by the public.

The same Publishers Weekly article also states that the first through fourth printings totaled 262,000 copies. As a result, copies from the second, third and fourth printings are quite scarce, while true first printing copies are regularly available for sale by online booksellers.

Printing Errors in the First Edition:

There is a commonly held mistaken belief that the first printing (and only the first printing) has an erroneous spelling of "scotoma" as "skitoma", and that a city name of "Lyon" was changed to "Lille" in later printings. 

However the truth is that the two errors occur not only in the first printing, but in several subsequent printings as well, before they were eventually corrected at some point.  They also occur in the book club edition of the book. 

As a result, those errors are "false points" and are irrelevant to identifying a first printing copy of the book (aka First Edition).

The Book Club Edition:

A significant number of copies listed online as First Editions (aka first printing copies) are actually the book club edition.

With some specific exceptions (and this is not one of them), book club editions are generally not considered collectible and are only suitable as reading copies. 

 Both the book club edition  and the First Edition of this book have the same information on the copyright page, so you cannot rely solely on the First Edition statement and numberline for identifying the real First Edition.

However the book club edition can be easily differentiated from the First Edition by the following:

• The book club edition is unpriced.  While the First Edition has a price of "$U.S. $24.95/Canada $37.95" on the center top of the front dustjacket flap.
• The lettering on the book club dustjacket is flat, with no embossing.  The dustjacket for the First Edition has embossed (raised) lettering on the front panel.
• The book club edition is 8 1/2 inches tall.  The First Edition is 9 1/2 inches tall.