Book Club Editions

This is a very curious thing to me, because these books have little value and are of little interest to collectors. But often they are mistaken for first editions. Sometimes they are acquired from the estates of wealthy people or relatives who just wouldn't have owned a cheap, worthless Book Club Edition, so it must  be a first edition!

Another reason for the confusion is that the general conventions used by many book publishers is to specify in one way or another when a book is a reprint. Some publishers use numbers, some use letters, some list the reprint dates. Some publishers take the opposite approach, and print the words "First Edition" on the copyright page to clearly identify firsts. The International Book Collectors Association has a wonderful web site which features a very well-done article on how to identify first editions ( see http://www.rarebooks.org/firsted.htm ). After reading this article by Glenn Larson, one will still face some confusion with regard to the Book Club Editions of GWTW. Regarding the Macmillan Company, Mr. Larson states the following:

" ... books before 1936 should have the same year on the title and copyright pages. From mid 1936 to 1979, the copyright page of books published by the Macmillan Company states the month and year of publication. Unless there is some statement below this, such as 'Second Printing' or 'Revised Edition,' the book in question is a first edition. Books after 1979 use a numbering system. The '1' must appear for a book to be a first."

Macmillan has used many methods over the years - and some of the Book Club Editions don't adhere to any of the standard rules. Many of the Book Club Editions simply state the copyright year in Roman numerals -without reference to the month of publication. These books do not quite satisfy Mr. Larson's criteria, but many people misunderstand the criteria as stated. In other words, it doesn't contain the month and the year (it only contains the year), but it doesn't contain a statement that specifically identifies it as a "Second Printing," "Revised Edition," or a list of reprint dates either. 

There is further misunderstanding and confusion about the actual year in which these editions were printed. After all, if 1936 is the only date that appears on the copyright page, doesn't that mean that the book was printed in 1936? Actually, in the case of Gone With the Wind ... no, it doesn't! More on this later.

To eliminate the confusion around the Book Club Editions of Gone With the Wind, we need to back up just a bit and unravel some confusion about the "Book of the Month Club" and the "Book Club Editions."

Book of the Month Club

In June of 1936 the "Book-of- the-Month Club" selected Gone With the Wind as its featured title, and offered it to its members for $2.75 - a whopping 25¢ below the retail list price. The "Book-of- the-Month Club" did not sell inexpensive reprints, or special book club editions of the titles that they offered. They sold the same books that one could purchase from the shelves of their local bookstores, and they offered them at a slight savings. Their main forte was the convenience that they offered - the opportunity for their members to purchase these current titles without leaving the comfort of their homes.

So keep in mind that in 1936 there was only one edition of Gone With the Wind available to the book-buying public - the first edition. It proved to be incredibly popular, and was reprinted about 30 times before the end of 1936.

The Book Club Edition

The Book Club Edition came along much later. In fact, it was in 1954 when it was first offered by the "Dollar Book Club" of Garden City, New York for $1.50. The first edition was then in its 57th printing, and carried a retail price of $3.95. This offering was announced to members of the "Dollar Book Club" in the September-October mailing - "The Bulletin Presents" as shown in the scans below. Click on the scans to view larger images.

Front Cover	Inside - 1st spread

	Inside - 2nd spread

Inside - 3rd spread	Back Cover

	As with modern book and record clubs, members ordered their selections by placing stamps on their order sheet and returning it to the book club. This is the stamp that would have been used to select Gone With the Wind. Pictured on the stamp is the easily recognizable dust jacket cover of the Book Club Edition of GWTW.

The first book club edition caries several distinct identifying points. First and foremost is the copyright page, shown below.

The copyright year (1936) appears in Roman Numerals (MCMXXXVI), and year of its printing (1954) appears below that along with the publisher's name (Garden City Books).

A second feature that distinctly identifies this edition is the publisher's name (Garden City) on the foot of the spine, as pictured in the book on the right in the photo below.

The publisher's name also appears on the lower part of the title page.

Another feature to note is the two-column text layout.

Finally, the page count for this edition is 689 pages.

Dust Jacket Design

 A common dust jacket design was used for several of the Book Club Editions. It first appeared on the original 1954 Garden City edition.

Since the dust jackets that were supplied with several different Book Club Editions were identical, they are useless for distinguishing one edition from another. There are, however, several characteristics of the dust jackets that are worth noting.

First, please note that it is only on the dust jacket - and not on the book itself - that the designation of "Book Club Edition" explicitly appears. The photo below is a close-up of the front flap

Despite this clear designation, many of these editions are listed in the on-line auctions as "First Editions" or as "Possible First Editions." Unless this corner has been clipped from the dust jacket, such mistakes are inexcusable.

Another point of interest with regard to the dust jacket is statement that appears on the front as well as the back near the bottom: "... read by over 20,000,000 people," as shown below.

This corroborates the 1954 printing date, since there could obviously not have been 20 million readers much earlier than that year. Further corroboration to this date is a statement that is printed on the back flap of the dust jacket:

The reference to Miss Mitchell's death in 1949 clearly dates the printing of the dust jacket as sometime later than 1949, and fits perfectly with the 1954 printing date of the book itself. While this fact may seem trivial, we will return to these facts later when we date some of the other Book Club Editions.

Later Printings of the Book Club Edition

Sometime after the 1954 printing of the Book Club Edition by Garden City Books, a Macmillan Book Club Edition was produced. A precise pinpointing of the date is difficult, because it is not stated in the book itself. The copyright statement - shown below - indicates the copyright year (in Roman Numerals), but it does not contain the date or year in which the edition was printed.

The photo of the copyright page above was reduced in order to show the entire page and demonstrate that it identical to the copyright page that appears in the 1954 Garden City edition. Identical in every way  but one - the section that provides the year in which the edition was printed has been completely eliminated. The only date that is indicated in any way is 1936 - the copyright year.

This has led many to the erroneous conclusion that this edition was actually printed in 1936. Some even insist that this was the book that was offered by the "Book-of-the-Month Club," but that cannot be so, based on details that have already been presented about the "Book-of-the-Month Club" earlier on this page. One must admit that the absence of any later dates could easily lead one astray into thinking that this edition was indeed produced in 1936. It is also commonly believed by many that if there is but one year that appears in the copyright notice, that must by law be the year in which the book was printed. But there is ample evidence to dismiss such notions.

Consider the following:

• The dust jackets that are original to these books are identical to the ones found on the 1954 Garden City edition. The reference to 20 million readers and the death of Margaret Mitchell in 1949 make it impossible to believe that the books could have been produced any earlier than the 1954 Garden City edition. These "dateless" editions must be contemporary - or more recent than - the Garden City edition.

• Book Club advertisements earlier than Garden City's "The Bulletin Presents" in 1954 are non-existent. Book Club Editions were inexpensive, so they had to be sold in large quantities. Macmillan did lots of advertising for the First Edition throughout the first year of its publication. These ads can be found in many vintage magazines and literary publications from 1936 - but nary a mention of a Book Club Edition exists from that time period.

• Macmillan was having such phenomenal success with the First Edition that there was no need or desire to produce an inexpensive version of the book. They couldn't keep the higher-priced copies in print! So in 1936, it wouldn't have made sense for the Macmillan to turn away profits by releasing a low-priced book Club Edition.

• The fact that no dates are indicated other than the copyright year does not mean that the year of publication must be the same as the year appearing in the copyright statement. This will become clear when we examine the post-1964 editions in the section that follows.

Two final points of identification for this edition are its page count (689) and its two-column text layout - both identical to that of the Garden City edition.

Later Book Club Editions

More variations of the Book Club Editions appeared after 1964 - the year in which the Stevens Mitchell and Trust Company renewed the copyright on the book. The copyright statement is pictured below. 

At least two distinct variations of these later editions exist. Both are type set into a single column of text which extends fully across the page. The earlier of the two editions has a page count of 719, and the later edition contains 733 pages. Neither edition stipulates the year in which it was printed - only the original 1936 copyright, and the 1964 copyright renewal. This is further evidence that publishers do not always provide the date of printing on the copyright page or title page of their books, and further reduces the credence of any claims that the earliest Book Club Editions were printed in 1936 - simply because that is the only year that appears on their copyright pages.

Bindings

Despite the variations among the Book Club Editions of Gone With the Wind, they all have one thing in common - they have no printing, titles, lettering, decorations, or ornamentation on the front or back covers. The spines vary slightly across the board - but only in the relative position of the lettering and scrolls (some are positioned a little higher, and some are a little lower). This is evident in several photos that appear on this page. The front cover of the  First Edition, on the other hand, contains the title and some scrollwork. This is probably the fastest and easiest way to distinguish a Book Club Edition from a First Edition.

As stated at the beginning of this exercise, Book Club Editions are not highly sought-after by collectors, and their values are quite low. Even so, it can be quite challenging to collect the many variations that exist in their bindings. The photo below pictures seven of the combinations of colors that can be found on the original titles and bindings.

Please send a note if you have additional color combinations that are not pictured here.