The Library
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Discover many of the beautiful editions of this classic novel that
have been published since 1936. |
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On-Line
Scams
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Don't get burned by the
on-line scams! Learn what to look for and what to avoid. |
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Home
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Return to the Gone With The Wind—Collecting the Book home
page. |
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Everything Scarlett
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A wonderful article about collecting GWTW by John Wiley
Jr. This is a must read for every collector! |
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Wind WrapperTM
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Replacement dust jackets. Available exclusively from GWTWbooks! |
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Chronology
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The first edition has been reprinted over 100 times. Follow the twisted and
confusing chronology to determine which copies you have. |
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Points of Issue
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Simple instructions for identifying First Editions and the coveted
First Printings. |
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First
Edition, 1936
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Here's the book that started the whole "Gone With the Wind"
craze. It's not much to look at—in fact, you could call the design drab—but this
is the gray cloth binding that the publisher stuck with through dozens of reprints in
1936, 1937, and 1938. By 1939, Macmillan started showing a little more imagination in
the cover design by introducing color into the design. Blue cloth and red cloth bindings
were done in a few variations which appear elsewhere in this web site. |
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| The addition of printer's cartouches to the design of the spine of
the first edition add a decorative touch, but overall, the design is not very exciting. The
cover pictured above and the spine pictured to the right are good examples of the first
edition, although the book pictured is not from the GWTWbooks collection. |
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Here's the identifying feature of a true first printing of the first
edition. The copyright page must state "Published May, 1936." Anything other
than May, 1936 is a reprint. Although the "First Printing" is the most sought
after of the first editions, most of the early reprints are also quite collectible, so one
should not think that the early reprints are worthless. Those in dust jackets can fetch up
to $200 or more, depending on condition. Additional instructions for identifying true
first editions and first printings are available on the Points
of Issue page. |
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The
Dust Jacket
| Pictured to the right and below are photographs of a representative copy
of the dust jacket that was issued with the first printing. |
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The back of the dust jacket contains the primary point of issue for the
identification of the first state dust jacket.
Note that "Gone With the Wind" occupies the second position in the right-hand
column of the list of Macmillan Spring Novels. |
After the first printing, Macmillan moved "Gone With the Wind" to the top of
the left-hand column—the most visible position on the page. This point of issue is
very important since genuine first state dust jackets are even more rare than first state
editions of the book itself. |
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| The design of the dust jacket's spine remained unchanged over the course
of the early editions. In later reprints, after about 1940, the striping was removed and
the overall design of the dust jacket was simplified. Photos of later dust jackets appear
elsewhere at this site. |
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