In ABC for Book Collectors John Carter tells us “Strictly speaking, an edition comprises all copies of a book printed at any time or times from one setting-up of type without substantial change (including copies printed from stereotype, electrotype or similar plates made from that setting of type); while an impression or printing comprises the whole number of copies of that edition printed at one time, i.e. without the type or plates being removed from the press.” Of course few if any of us do speak strictly, and the two terms have become hopelessly entangled, not only because of our laxness of word usage but also because technological change has altered the conditions needed for that strict definition. To take things to the absurd limit, those strict speakers can demonstrate that “a ‘tenth impression’ printed from the same type-setting five years after the first, would still be part of the first edition — and so, for the matter of that, as Professor Bowers and other pundits have warned us, would a photo-lithographic or xerographic off-set impression printed five hundred years after the first.”
In order to preserve their sanity however book collectors have agreed to some fudging, and generally agree that the words first edition shall describe only the first impression of the first edition. This has the virtue of coinciding with what it is we all assumed to be the case. You may find “impression” and “edition” used ambiguously on the copyright pages of some older books, but nowadays publishers have pretty much agreed that “impression” shall mean “printing” while a second edition will happen at such time as the book is reprinted with more than a few corrections, this necessitating a new typesetting of the entire book. A reprint with corrections will be a step on this road, but, since only a few pages will have been altered, not a sufficiently wide one to necessitate an edition change. Updating a book to take account of scholarship which took place after your book was published will almost always demand the status of new edition. Having said that, I have to admit that publishers, who have always got strong opinions about everything (sometimes it seems the smaller the point the stronger the opinions) will still use different terminology in this regard. Within the last decade my suggestion to an august and ancient academic publishing house that the situation in hand constituted an occasion for the use of the term “Reprinted with corrections” was greeted with awe, as if I’d just invented an extremely cunning dodge.
There was a time, around the turn of the 19th/20th century when quite a lot of books got published with none of this bibliographic information, often even a date of publication. I was recently given a copy of Cassell’s Dictionary of Cookery, which helpfully tells you at the end of its recipes how much the dish should cost you. Knowing that whipping up a pound of Plumb’s Arrowroot Blanc-mange will set you back 1/6 — one shilling and sixpence — is no doubt fascinating but ultimately meaningless since the book contains no date of publication. All they tell us in this line is that the book was printed at Cassell’s Belle Sauvage Works, London EC, though there is an ad in the back of this “The largest, cheapest, and best cookery-book” which tells us it cost 7/6 to buy in cloth, and 9/- in half-roan*.
Most publishers have gotten better at this and provide some sort of information about the printing history of their books, though with the explosion in the number of new publishers facilitated by digital developments, this assertion may become less and less tenable. At Oxford University Press we would use that silly number system to indicate which printing you were looking at — you’d typeset a line of numbers and each time you did a reprint you’d delete the lowest number. Thus a line saying 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 would tell that the book you were looking at came from the 26th printing. This opaque and minimally informative system may have made some economic sense in the days of letterpress or the early days of offset printing where the film negative would be quickly opaqued before platemaking, but in the days of digital transfer it saves nothing and conceals much. I always favored the way we used to do it in Cambridge. “First published 1977; Reprinted 1978 (twice), 1979; Reprinted with corrections 1979; Second edition 1981” and so on. The information supplied isn’t really of vital interest to many, but for those few librarians, academics, bibliophiles etc. who do want to know, isn’t it better to provide the full story rather than a bare line of digits? Of course if we end up with all books being printed on demand, one copy at a time, this sort of information will be irrelevant. In mitigation it is (almost) always true that you can find in the back of a POD book a barcode and information which will include the precise place and date your copy was printed.
I find I have expatiated on these matters before. My previous, slightly differently focussed post can be found here.
See also First printing. For a different sense of the word “impression” please see Even impression.
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* Roan is thin form of sheepskin used as a cheap substitute for morocco (a goat skin). Half-roan would look a bit like what we nowadays call 
a three-piece binding, though it would have leather corners as well. Omit the corners and it’d be quarter-roan.
Making Book 
I have a book that states first edition fifth impression. Is this first edition book it is in perfect condition
It is a first edition in the sense quoted in my first paragraph — “Strictly speaking, an edition comprises all copies of a book printed at any time or times from one setting-up of type without substantial change”. But, as my second paragraph says, book collectors agree that “the words first edition shall describe only the first impression of the first edition” and this does not include your book. The value of the book to a collector will depend on its rarity. For us normal mortals I think that you’d be fine thinking of the book as a first edition.
Thank you for the detailed explanation.
I collect individual Lord of the Rings volumes. In one set I have the first two volumes (both 9th impression 1962) and I am currently searching for the matching third volume.
In order to have a legitimate set, do have to find a 9th impression 1962? Or will any 1962 volume in any impression complete the set?
I’m not knowledgable about second-hand book pricing, but I’d have thought that having a complete set of the ninth printing would be nothing other than “neat”. The really valuable ones would be the first printing. Still, as I say I don’t really know: Why don’t you go into a reputable antiquarian bookshop and ask the question? I’m sure they’d be helpful (especially if they happened t have a 9th printing in stock). Mine are 15th printing!
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Hello Richard. I’m delighted to find your magnificent blog. Thank you for generously sharing your knowledge. I’m interested to learn how one might use the term ‘impression’ when publishing the same novel in different formats (hardback, paperback) of the first edition of a physical book. Our first edition first impression of a novel in hardback was limited to 51 copies (the odd one 00/50 being sent to the British Library Legal Deposit as required). We are about to produce a limited print run of 100 paperbacks with flaps (a paperback with flaps folded like a dust jacket). Would this be a second impression of the book, or would it be a first impression of the paperback? We will subsequently publish a plain paperback, probably as a print-on-demand via KDP. Nielsen’s ISBN department advised that this can have the same ISBN as the paperback with flaps, or, it may have its own ISBN. We will choose the latter to differentiate it from the limited print run with flap. But what about the term ‘impression’? Would a paperback without flaps be a third impression, or a second impression of the paperback? I understand ‘impression’ to mean that unique print-run. Obviously significant to our hardback of 51 copies and paperback with flaps of 100 copies. But a print-on-demand is also an impression, albeit an unlimited one. I hope that all makes sense and apologies for not being more succinct. Thanks in advance for any comments or advice. Kindest regards, Ange
I think “impression” becomes almost meaningless when one gets into the world of print on demand. I assume your hardback was printed by print on demand, rather than by printing 51 sets of sheets and binding them up as hardbacks. (Or even perhaps by 152 copies, binding 51 as hardbacks and holding back 101 for your paperback.) Originally the focus of the term “impression” or “printing” was actually on the original from which the book was printed: in a letterpress world specifically the metal type. If a second printing (or impression of that type) would require resetting the type there obviously arose the possibility of different set of typos in the second impression from the first. This was important to librarians, researchers and bibliophiles: hence book publishers got into the habit of labelling these things.
In today’s world these matters are less important now that books can be reprinted in exactly the same form as they first were. Bear in mind too that there aren’t really any fixed and uniform definitions of these terms. In the end you can pretty much say what you want. (It’s desirable to retain consistent usage with your future publications too.) I wouldn’t necessarily suggest abandoning all reference to “printings” or “impressions” just because the logic of print on demand really makes the words meaningless. I would rather suggest you call the hardback “First impression” or “First printing” and the paperback “Second impression in paperback 2020” or “Reprinted in paperback 2020”. (In other words I wouldn’t regard the paperback binding as a fresh start on the impression train.) When you print again without flaps you could just call that “Reprinted in paperback 2021 (unless you are selling it separately as a different item — see below).
On the ISBN question: you can use the same ISBN on the paperback with flaps as on the paperback without flaps which you publish later on, unless you want to promote it as a different item. After all if you changed the design of the cover, by putting a different photo on it say, you’d not need to change the ISBN. One reason to “waste” an ISBN on the different editions of your paperback would be if you wanted to enable your computer system to easily analyze sales differences and trends. Obviously given your numbers, this wouldn’t be a useful thing to do. However if you plan to sell the paperback with flaps at the same time as you sell a paperback without flaps (ie in competition with each other) you would need to give them different ISBNs, or you’d never know which one the customer wanted.
Hope this answers your questions.
Thank you so much Richard for your thorough reply, which does indeed answer my questions. We actually printed 51 hardback books. The 100 paperbacks with flaps will use a separate print run. Neither can be described as Print on Demand, but the paperback we publish next year may well be. I think as you say, consistency in our interpretation of terminology for our publishing brand is important and I think I will add a page explaining our use of the various phrases on our website. Thank you ever so. Best wishes, Ange
Hi Richard, which would you cite as the pubisher in a footnote or biblio if it says “Imprint by T&T Clark” and “Published by Bloomsbury Academic”? Thanks.
Sounds like Bloomsbury is unambiguously the publisher. Clarks may be the printer. There was a book printer T & J Clark I think I remember. Does it really say “Imprint”? Impression or Imprinted might have been used as a synonym for printing I guess, but would be unusual. Given that your footnoting of author, title, date and publisher is mainly there in order to help readers track down the book you reference, I think Bloomsbury Academic would be the one to use. Clarks would just muddy the waters I think.
It does say “imprint” each time I have looked. Google says:
T&T Clark is a British publishing firm which was founded in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1821 and which now exists as an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing.
Parent organization: Continuum International Publishing Group
Founded: 1821, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Headquarters location: London, WC1
Publication types: Academic journals, books.”
So it “exists as an imprint of
Bloomsbury” and both names/insignia will appear together on a top corner of the webpage hawking the monograph concerned.Would you still cite it as Bloomsbury instead of T&T Clark? Thanks.
Yes, I would. Nobody’s going to end up with the wrong book if you ignore the imprint bit. It’s a bit like saying a Ballantine book is published by Random House. I think we are here in territory where there’s no right (or wrong) answer!
Hi Richard, Looking at the Allen & Unwin archives for their books printed before and after the First World War, they note sales to the USA, UK, free copies, special/remaindered copies, and something called ’13th copies’. Have you any idea what these ’13th copies’ were? Thanks
I’ve never heard of this term in connection with the book trade. All I can think of might be a sort of sales incentive: “Buy twelve and get one free”. In the olden days we had things called first copies. As I wrote years ago “In the basement of Bentley House was the slow moving stock. On some of the shelves you’d find carefully wrapped slightly-damaged copies of the book. These were called ‘first copies’ and were the ones you’d sell first when the book itself went out of print (at least that’s how I think the name came about).” But that can have nothing to do with the 13th copy!
Thanks Richard for your comments. It reminded me a bit of the baker’s dozen idea, which perhaps ties in with your incentive hypothesis.
It is the same deal isn’t it. I guess the incentive would have been addressed to bookshops. Back in those days books were not returned to the publisher. If the bookseller bought twelve, they’d have 12 (or 13!) to sell.