Editing Edition (book) (section)

===Collectors' definition===
[[File:Tristram Shandy First edition spines.jpg|thumb|First editions of [[Laurence Sterne]]'s [[The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman|Tristram Shandy]] ]]
A common complaint of book collectors is that the bibliographer's definition is used in a book-collecting context. For example, [[J. D. Salinger]]'s ''[[The Catcher in the Rye]]'' {{as of|2016|lc=y}} remains in print in hardcover. The type is the same as the 1951 first printing, therefore all hardcover copies are, for the bibliographer, the first edition. Collectors would use the term for the first printing only.

First edition most often refers to the first commercial publication of a work between its own covers, even if it was first printed in a periodical: the complete text of [[Ernest Hemingway]]’s ''[[The Old Man and the Sea]]'' appeared in the September 1, 1952, issue of ''[[Life (magazine)|Life]]'', yet the generally accepted "first" edition is the hardcover book [[Charles Scribner's Sons|Scribner]]’s published on September 8, 1952.

The term "first trade edition," refers to the earliest edition of a book offered for sale to the general public in book stores. For example, [[Upton Sinclair]]'s 1906 novel ''[[The Jungle]]'' was published in two variant forms. A "Sustainers' Edition", published by the Jungle Publishing Company, was sent to subscribers who had advanced funds to Sinclair. The first trade edition was published by [[Doubleday, Page]] to be sold in bookstores.

Many book collectors place maximum value on the earliest bound copies of a book—promotional [[advance copy|advance copies]], bound galleys, uncorrected proofs, and advance reading copies sent by publishers to book reviewers and [[bookstore|booksellers]]. It is true that these are rarer than the production copies; but given that these were not printed from a different setting of type (just the opposite; the main purpose of galleys and proofs is to double-check the typeset matter that will be used for production), they are not different editions.