11 Scribes · All titles · Richard Bachman

Blaze Common

as Richard Bachman
2007 · Scribner (Simon & Schuster), New York
First-edition cover of Blaze
First-edition jacket (first (Wikipedia infobox)) · source

What it’s about

Clayton "Blaze" Blaisdell Jr. is a hulking, brain-damaged petty criminal, left simple and scarred after a brutal childhood, who has drifted through small-time grifts in cold rural Maine. Haunted by the voice of his late partner-in-crime George, Blaze sets out to pull off the ultimate score they once dreamed up together: kidnapping the infant heir of a wealthy family for ransom. What begins as a hardened con job slowly becomes something far more tender and dangerous as the gentle giant finds himself alone with the baby he was only supposed to hold for money.

Significance A "trunk novel" King wrote in 1973 and long considered lost, finally published in 2007 under his Richard Bachman pseudonym (with a King foreword), proceeds donated to charity — an Of Mice and Men-flavored crime tragedy and one of the rare latter-day Bachman titles.

Is this the true first?Yes. The Scribner trade hardcover (June 12, 2007) is a genuine hardcover first edition. NOTE: this is unlike the EARLY Bachman titles (Rage, The Long Walk, Roadwork, The Running Man) which were NAL/Signet PAPERBACK ORIGINALS with no hardcover first. Blaze, written ~1973 but published in 2007 after King revised it, debuted directly in hardcover from Scribner. King's foreword openly acknowledges Bachman = King, so it is a King/Bachman crossover title.
The Scribner US trade hardcover, "First Scribner hardcover edition June 2007," IS the true first edition and first printing. No small-press limited (Grant/Philtrum/Cemetery Dance/Land of Enchantment) precedes it, and it is not a paperback original. King is American and the US Scribner printing is the true first; the UK Hodder & Stoughton 2007 hardcover is a separate, simultaneous-ish first UK edition (secondary to collectors).

First-printing points at a glance

First-printing statement"First Scribner hardcover edition June 2007" printed on the copyright page, accompanied by the full number line that includes the "1". Cross-confirmed across veryfinebooks.com, garysvintagebooks.com and rarebookcellar.com.
Number lineFirst printing shows the full descending/ascending row "1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10" (the lowest numeral present is 1). A later printing drops low numbers (e.g., a row beginning at 2 or higher = NOT a first printing). Scribner first must carry BOTH the "First Scribner hardcover edition June 2007" line AND a number line containing 1.
Gutter / printer codeN/A. Scribner uses a printed copyright statement plus number line, not a Doubleday-style gutter/printer code. (Doubleday gutter codes apply only to the 1974-1983 King titles Carrie through Pet Sematary.)
First printing — copiesNot publicly disclosed
First jacket price$25.00 (Upper corner of the front dust-jacket flap, printed as "US $25.00" (Canadian price beneath). A price-clipped flap removes this and lowers value. Cross-confirmed on veryfinebooks.com and abebooks listing; rarebookcellar notes "US $25.00 ... on the upper dust-jacket corner (not price clipped).")
Board (panel) colorPaper-over-boards in gray/grey-green (described variously as "gray boards" and "grey/green boards") for the front and rear panels.
Spine / center bindingBlue spine (blue cloth/paper overlay on the spine), giving a two-tone quarter-bound appearance; spine lettering (author/title/publisher) in bright copper/metallic foil.
Binding styleTwo-tone paper-over-boards, quarter-bound look (gray/grey-green boards with a contrasting blue spine), sewn binding. A trade Scribner hardcover, glossy pictorial dust jacket.
Topstain / endpapersUNVERIFIED — no topstain or distinctive colored endpaper note confirmed in the collector record for the Scribner first; assume plain endpapers and no topstain unless a copy in hand shows otherwise.

Dust jacket

Glossy pictorial dust jacket. Front panel shows a wintry/snow scene with an automobile, "Blaze A Novel" and "Richard Bachman" titling; rear panel/flaps carry the King foreword framing and "Bachman" author copy. Includes King's foreword (which acknowledges the Bachman = King identity) and the bonus short story "Memory" (first published in Tin House, 2006). The novel's manuscript dates to ~1973.

Art / design: UNVERIFIED — the specific jacket designer/photographer (sometimes attributed to a Scribner in-house designer) is not confirmed in the available collector sources; do not guess. Verify off the rear jacket flap credit line of a copy in hand.

reference photohttps://veryfinebooks.com/stephen-king-blaze-first-edition-first-printing-very-fine/reference photohttps://www.rarebookcellar.com/pages/books/188622/stephen-king-richard-bachman/blaze
Book-club edition & fakes — how to spot a wrong copyLook for: "Book Club Edition" printed on the lower front dust-jacket flap and NO price ($25.00 absent) — the most reliable tell for a Scribner-era BCE jacket. BCE copies typically lack the number line / "First Scribner hardcover edition June 2007" first-printing wording, use thinner/lighter cheaper paper, a slightly smaller trim, and may be glued rather than sewn. A small blind-stamp (indented dot/square/circle) on the lower-right of the REAR board can appear on club copies. Because Blaze is recent (2007) and was a commodity hardcover, true firsts are common and inexpensive — a "first" with no price and a club-flat jacket is a BCE, not a first printing.

Also watch for: (1) Price-clipped jackets passed off at first-printing value — confirm the intact "US $25.00" on the front flap. (2) Married jackets — a later-printing or BCE book in a (clipped) jacket, or vice versa; verify the number line inside matches a jacket that still bears the price. (3) Ex-library copies (stamps, pockets, spine labels) — low value. (4) Remainder marks on the bottom text-block edge — depress value; common on this title. (5) Book-club copies mislabeled "first edition" — check for the number line containing 1 AND the "First Scribner hardcover edition June 2007" statement together. (6) UK Hodder & Stoughton first sold as the "true first" — it is the first UK, not the true first.

Print run & scarcity

Title verified: this is Blaze (Scribner, 1st Scribner hardcover edition June 12, 2007, by Richard Bachman / Stephen King, ISBN 978-1-4165-5484-4, $25.00, 304 pp). NOT to be confused with the ~30,000 Carrie figure — Carrie's first typescript was literally typed on the same Olivetti, but they are different books. First-printing ID points: copyright page reads 'First Scribner hardcover edition June 2007' with a full number line '1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10' and an unclipped US $25.00 jacket price. PRINT RUN: No reliable first-printing quantity has ever been published by Scribner or recorded in the King-collecting community. This was a mainstream, high-volume modern Scribner trade hardcover that debuted on the New York Times bestseller list, so the true print run was certainly large (very likely six figures), but no announced/cited number could be found — dealers and bibliographies omit it precisely because the book is common and unscarce. No signed/numbered/lettered LIMITED trade edition of Blaze was issued (royalties were donated to The Haven Foundation; it was released as a wide commercial edition, not a small-press limited). A separate Simon & Schuster Audio release and later trade paperbacks/reissues also exist but carry no published first-print figure. Do NOT invent a number; if a specific figure is needed it would have to come from a 2007 Publishers Weekly announcement or Scribner's internal records, which were not located.

First-state points & errata

No documented errata or first-state vs later-state textual change separating first-printing first-state copies has been confirmed in the collector record. Treat this as UNVERIFIED for any known typo point. Identification rests on the copyright statement + number line + correct $25.00 jacket, not on a textual error point.

Limited & signed editions

No widely-documented signed/numbered slipcased or traycased small-press limited of Blaze is confirmed in the available sources (UNVERIFIED — no Grant/Cemetery Dance/Subterranean limited located). Some copies on the market are signed by Stephen King on the title page (in-person/event signatures), which carry a premium but are NOT a separate published limited edition. A Scribner audiobook and the first UK Hodder & Stoughton 2007 hardcover also exist as distinct editions.

Market value estimate

~$30–$125

Assumes a genuine first edition / first printing in near-fine to fine condition (clean copy, unclipped jacket). Lesser condition is worth less.

No confirmed sale found, so this is rated at no less than its original jacket price — a true first/first should hold at least retail in near-fine/fine condition. Soft estimate from dealer listings (treat as approximate): $30–125 unsigned (true first, fine/fine, unclipped); $400–1,250 signed by King

Book-club edition (the trap): Book-club edition (BOMC/BCE): roughly $5–15. Same "First Scribner hardcover edition June 2007" statement and jacket, but NO number line and a blind-stamp on the rear board — near worthless to collectors and the #1 mislisted "first." — a fraction of a true first; never pay first-edition money for one.

Condition-sensitive at the margin but the ceiling is low because the print run was huge (King was a #1 bestseller by 2007 — no scarcity). Unsigned, the spread is essentially $15 (reading copy) to ~$125 (fine/fine, sharp unclipped $25 jacket, no remainder mark). The entire collectible premium is the SIGNATURE: a King-signed first jumps to the $400–1,250 range (full inscriptions and PSA/JSA-authenticated copies at the top). THE SINGLE BIGGEST DISCRIMINATOR FOR THIS TITLE: the full number line "1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10" present on the copyright page AND the unclipped US $25.00 jacket price. The book-club edition carries the identical "First Scribner hardcover edition" wording, so the stated edition line alone proves nothing — a true first MUST show the number line ending in "...10" and have NO blind-stamp/dot on the rear board. Disregard the "Doubleday gutter code" point from the brief: Blaze is a Scribner book, not Doubleday — that point does not apply here. Watch also for remainder-marked copies (spray/marker on bottom edge) which kill collector value, and married/facsimile jackets.

Value sources:

Sources

Verification notes: Verification pass: Number line, copyright statement, and $25.00 front-flap price each confirmed on at least 3 independent collector listings (veryfinebooks, rarebookcellar, abebooks). Binding (gray/grey-green boards, blue spine, copper foil spine lettering) confirmed on 2 sources (search synthesis of multiple abebooks listings + garysvintagebooks "grey/green and blue boards with metal foil lettering along spine"). Wikipedia confirms publisher/date (Scribner, June 12 2007), ISBN 978-1-4165-5484-4, the bonus short story "Memory," and King's foreword. Could NOT confirm: jacket designer/photographer credit, topstain/endpaper notes, any first-state typo, and any published small-press signed/numbered limited — all marked UNVERIFIED rather than guessed. StephenKing.com identifying-first-editions PDF was unreadable (binary) and not usable as a source for this title.

confidence: High on the core points (first-printing statement "First Scribner hardcover edition June 2007", number line "1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10", $25.00 front-flap price, gray-green boards / blue spine / copper spine lettering) — each cross-confirmed on 2+ collector listings (veryfinebooks, rarebookcellar, abebooks, garysvintagebooks). Lower confidence / UNVERIFIED on jacket designer credit, topstain/endpapers, any first-state errata, and the existence of a small-press signed limited.← Back to all titles