Salem’s Lot: paperback first edition?

[sadako]

I lost my original copy of Salem’s Lot, with the textless, embossed cover but rebought it last week.

I’m sure we (me or my mum) bought the first paperback edition that hit the shelves, but spent this weekend learning about the murky world of “paperback first editions”.

The term is of course contradictory, in that the hardbacks are the true first editions, and seem to be all that auction houses and serious booksellers care about. But as we collectors know, the cover art and the first paperback runs are also of great value.

But trying to work out if this edition was the first UK paperback seems to be unverifiable, in terms of the copyright page.

My copy shares the same “this edition” date (February 1977), but has a different ISBN number to this copy, currently on sale on abebooks as a first edition. Same month, but which was first?





Which all means I know a lot less about paperbacks than I thought.

[Deleted]

The title intrigues me, care to give us a brief synopsis of what the story is about?

[helrunar]

It's a vampire story--vicious vampires, not the romantic type--which has been filmed 3 or 4 times now.

Hel.