Reliable, professional Booksellers should by all means declare in their book descriptions which Edition and which Printing they are offering for sale or auction.

Why is this? Because to true Book Collectors, a First Edition means a book produced from the First Printing of the First Edition. (You may sometimes see the word “Impression” substituted for the word “Printing.” The derivative of the word Impression is from the time when "Letterpress" printing from metal letters were pressed or rolled onto the sheets of printing paper - thus leaving an Impression on the page. If you were to lightly run a finger over the impressed words, you could actually feel the letters' slight indentations - a faint similarity to feeling heavily worn Braille dots.)

Publishers view the definition of First Editions completely differently in that a title needs to be substantially revised before it is considered a Second Edition.

NOTE TO BOOK COLLECTORS: The phrases Second Printing Before Publication or Third Printing Before Publication means that before the book was released, bookseller orders exceeded the quantity of the publisher's True First Printing and the book has been printed again. To a Book Collector, this is NOT a True First Edition.

This guide was assembled by booksuncommon.  Any errors are mine. For those I apologize.

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