Salem's Lot by Stephen
King
Identifying First Edition Points of Issue
Front Cover
of First Trade Edition You can search for first editions of
Salem's Lot on
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Salem's Lot by Stephen King - First edition points of
issue.
Year
Published: 1975
ISBN:
0-385-00751-5
Publisher:
Doubleday
Pages: 439
Price: $8.95 or $7.95
(See First Edition Points of Issue below for more
details)
Book
Size: 5.75 x 85
Copyright page: First
editor is stated “First Edition”
First Edition Total
Publication: Estimated to be 20,000
First Edition Points of
Issue: Date code Q37 on page 439.
Binding: Quarter bound in black cloth with red
boards
Paste Down
Color: White
Dust Jacket: A NEW
NOVEL, without anchor on the spine
Dedication: For
Naomi Rachel King '...promises to keep.'
This book
had many problems when first published. Specifically the
dust jacket has a number of states. The first and
second states have a significantly higher value than later
states.
- First
State: Issued with a price of $8.95 and main
character referred to as Father Cody (a mistake should
be Callahan) in flap description. This state dust
jacket is very rare.
- Second
State: Publisher decided the price was to high and
clipped the dust jacket and decreasing the price to $7.95,
this version still has the Father Cody mistake. This state
is not as scarce as the first state.
- Third
State:. Dust jacket is corrected from Father Cody
change to Father Callahan, this state is much more common
than the first or second state.
 
Limited Edition: In
2005, Centipede Press released a deluxe limited signed edition
of Salem’s Lot with black and white photographs, the two short
stories "Jerusalem’s Lot" and "One for the Road", and over
fifty pages of deleted scenes. This book was limited to 300
copies signed by Stephen King and illustrator Jerry Uelsmann.
Black cloth-covered boards with photo inset and matching black
cloth slip case. Total weight of this book was over 13 pounds,
9 x 13 inches and over 4 1/4" thick.
 
Centipede Press Limited
Edition
Following the release of
the Centipede Press limited edition an illustrate trade
edition was released by Doubleday
- Hardcover: 600 pages
- Publisher: Doubleday edition (November
1, 2005)
- ISBN-10: 0385516487
- ISBN-13: 978-0385516488
- Book Size: 9.3 x 6.5 x 2 inches
Description: Stephen
King's second published novel
Ben Mears, a successful writer who grew
up in the (fictional) town of Jerusalem’s Lot, Cumberland
County, Maine (or “The Lot”, as the locals call it), has
returned home following the death of his wife. Ben plans to
write a book about the “Marsten house”, an abandoned mansion
that gave him nightmares after a bad experience with it as a
child. Once in town he meets local high school teacher Matt
Burke and strikes up a romantic relationship with Susan Norton,
a young college graduate.
Mears discovers that the Marsten house
has been bought by Mr. Straker and Mr. Barlow, a pair of
businessmen who are also new to the town, although only Straker
has yet been seen. Their arrival coincides with the
disappearance of a young boy, Ralphie Glick, and the suspicious
death of his brother Danny. Over the course of the book, the
town is slowly taken over by vampires, reducing it to a ghost
town by day as they sleep. Ben, Matt, Susan, and a few other
residents of the Lot try to prevent this from happening. In the
end Ben and young Mark Petrie succeed in killing Straker and
destroying the master vampire Barlow, but, lucky to escape with
their lives, are forced to leave the town to the crop of
newly-created vampires. An epilogue has the two returning to
the town a year later, intending to renew the battle, but
allusions in King’s later writings leave it an open question as
to just how successful they are.
’Salem’s Lot is a combination of
psychological thriller and the classic horror genre, making
references to Bram Stoker's Dracula at several points and
sometimes replicating its storyline.
The book was adapted into a 1979 TV movie
of the same name, starring David Soul and James Mason. A sequel
to that movie, A Return to Salem’s Lot, was made in 1987.
Another TV movie was made in 2004, starring Rob Lowe, Andre
Braugher and James Cromwell.
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