11 Scribes · All titles · Viking & Putnam (1979-1997)

Cycle of the Werewolf Collectible

illustrated by Berni (Bernie) Wrightson

1983 · The Land of Enchantment (Christopher Zavisa), Westland, Michigan

First-edition cover of Cycle of the Werewolf — First-edition jacket (first (Wikipedia infobox)) · source

What it’s about

In the small town of Tarker's Mills, Maine, something inhuman wakes with every full moon — and across twelve months, from a snowbound January to a New Year's Eve, the killings track the lunar calendar with grim precision. As terror tightens its grip on the townsfolk month by month, a wheelchair-bound boy named Marty Coslaw becomes the one person paying close enough attention to suspect the truth. A slim, almanac-shaped horror told one chapter per moon.

Significance Published 1983 as an illustrated novella with full-color paintings by comics legend Bernie Wrightson; King adapted it himself into the 1985 film "Silver Bullet," and it stands as one of his classic small-town-Maine horrors.

Is this the true first?Yes — the original 1983 Land of Enchantment book is a true HARDCOVER first, and the only hardcover edition of this title. It is NOT a paperback original. Note the SIGNED LIMITED states (Presentation 8 / Collector's 100 / Deluxe 250 = the 350-copy signed run) PRECEDE/outrank the 7,500-copy unsigned trade hardcover as the true-first issue; all share the same 1983 sheets and dating.
The true first edition is the LAND OF ENCHANTMENT 1983 oversize illustrated hardcover — NOT a Viking/Putnam trade book (this title falls outside the usual mainstream-publisher pattern; it is a small-press illustrated novella that grew out of an aborted 1979 Wrightson/Zavisa werewolf-CALENDAR project — King's monthly 500-word vignettes outgrew the calendar format). CONFIRMED by official stephenking.com: within the 1983 Land of Enchantment publication there are FOUR co-issued states, all dated 1983: (1) Presentation/"Artist's Copies" — 8 copies, hand-written limitation notice, signed by King AND Wrightson; (2) Collector's Edition — 100 copies numbered 1-100, with dust jacket AND slipcase, with an original Berni Wrightson artwork laid in, signed by both; (3) Deluxe Edition — 250 copies numbered 101-350, with dust jacket AND slipcase, issued with a portfolio of Wrightson artwork, signed by both; (4) the unsigned TRADE hardcover — 7,500 copies, with dust jacket, no slipcase. The signed/numbered limited states (1-3) PRECEDE/outrank the 7,500-copy trade hardcover as the true-first issue and command far more money; the 7,500-copy trade hardcover is the affordable first edition most collectors mean by 'the first.' There is NO mainstream-publisher hardcover first — the 1985 Signet mass-market paperback (and the SILVER BULLET tie-in pairing the novella with King's screenplay) is later and separate. This 1983 Land of Enchantment book is the ONLY hardcover edition; no later hardcover printings are documented.

I own a copy of this title

My notes — condition, state, price intact, is it a book-club copy?

First-printing points at a glance

First-printing statementUNVERIFIED as an exact quoted line for the TRADE issue. Land of Enchantment did not use a conventional 'First Edition' + number-line convention. The SIGNED limited states are identified by a LIMITATION PAGE stating the copy number out of the run (Deluxe '___/250' i.e. #101-350, Collector's '___/100' i.e. #1-100) with King's and Wrightson's signatures; the 8 Presentation/Artist's copies carry a HAND-WRITTEN limitation notice. The unsigned trade hardcover lacks any limitation/number statement. Because there was only one hardcover printing, ANY correctly-bound 1983 Land of Enchantment trade copy in the brown gilt-stamped binding with the illustrated jacket is the first (and only) hardcover edition — do NOT expect a 'First Edition' slug or a number line. (Exact copyright-page wording for the trade issue could not be confirmed from the dealer/official sources reviewed — treat as UNVERIFIED; multiple specialist dealers, e.g. Atlanta Vintage Books, list these simply as 'First Edition, First Printing' on the basis of the binding/format, not a stated point.)

Number lineN/A — no publisher number line. The 1983 Land of Enchantment hardcover (all states) carries no '1 3 5 7 9...' style number line; first/only printing. (A number line — '1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9' under 'First Signet Edition April 1985' — appears only on the much later, unrelated 1985 Signet mass-market PAPERBACK, which is NOT the hardcover first.)

Gutter / printer codeN/A — Land of Enchantment is a small press; no Doubleday-style gutter/printer code applies.

First printing — copiesFirst/only 1983 Land of Enchantment printing: 7,850 total copies — 7,500 unsigned trade hardcovers + 350 signed/numbered limited (100 "Collector's," numbered 1–100, with a laid-in original Wrightson sketch; 250 "Deluxe," numbered 101–350, with a Wrightson art portfolio), all in slipcases. The trade was not reprinted by Land of Enchantment. accepted figure

First jacket priceUNVERIFIED. The widely-repeated '$8.95' figure traces to the 1985 SIGNET mass-market PAPERBACK (cover printed 'Canada $9.95 / U.S. $8.95'), NOT to the 1983 oversize trade hardcover; do not transfer it to the hardcover jacket. Multiple dealer listings of the 1983 trade hardcover (AbeBooks, perusethestacks, firstandfine, mycomicshop, camelotbooks) do not quote a printed jacket-flap price, and the exact original retail price of the trade hardcover jacket could not be confirmed across the sources reviewed. Marked UNVERIFIED rather than guessed. (UNVERIFIED — if a price is present it would be on the upper front dust-jacket flap (standard placement); but a confirmed first-printing trade-jacket price was not located across the dealer/official sources reviewed. Do not assume price-clipped = later state without inspecting the flap (there is only one hardcover printing).)

Board (panel) colorBrown. Dealers describe two binding presentations on the 1983 issue: 'brown mottled boards stamped in gilt' and 'full brown leatherette stamped in gilt' (cross-confirmed across multiple AbeBooks dealer descriptions). Oversize quarto format (~9" x 11" / ~28.5 cm), 114 pp.

Spine / center bindingBrown (same brown leatherette/mottled-boards material as the covers — a single-tone full binding, NOT quarter-bound two-tone), with GOLD GILT lettering/stamping on BOTH the front cover and the spine. Wrightson's signature is reproduced in gold on the title page. Spine is notoriously prone to sunning/fading.

Binding styleFull brown leatherette / mottled cloth-paper over boards (single-color full binding, not quarter-bound), gilt-stamped front and spine; sewn oversize quarto, 114 pp, with illustrated endpapers. Signed limited states (Collector's/Deluxe) are housed in a custom SLIPCASE; the unsigned trade hardcover has NO slipcase (dust jacket only). The Deluxe state was accompanied by a separate Wrightson art portfolio.

Topstain / endpapersIllustrated endpapers (Wrightson art) — confirmed across multiple dealers. Topstain: UNVERIFIED. In the signed Presentation/Collector's states, King and Wrightson signed/laid-in artwork; the Collector's state carries an original Wrightson drawing laid in.

Dust jacket

Color pictorial dust jacket featuring Berni Wrightson werewolf cover art. Notorious production flaw CONFIRMED: the jacket printing process produced varying degrees of WHITE SPOTTING on many jackets; jackets also fade/sun badly, especially the spine and portions of the front panel. Jacket condition is the dominant value driver for the trade issue. (Exact back-panel layout not separately confirmed.)

Art / design: Berni (Bernie) Wrightson — cover art and all interior illustration (24 full-page glossy plates: 12 full-color + 12 black-and-white, one of each per chapter, plus chapter art and illustrated endpapers). Story by Stephen King; project conceived/published by Christopher Zavisa (Land of Enchantment), originating from a 1979 calendar proposal.

https://www.stephenkingcollector.com/limited/cycle.html

https://stephenking.com/works/limited/cycle-of-the-werewolf.html

https://www.abebooks.com/9780960382828/Cycle-Werewolf-King-Stephen-Wrightson-0960382828/plp

Book-club edition & fakes — how to spot a wrong copyNo formal Book-of-the-Month / book-club edition of the 1983 Land of Enchantment hardcover is documented — it was a small-press print run, NOT a Doubleday/BOMC title, so the usual blind-stamp + 'Book Club Edition' flap tells do not apply here. CONFIRMED: no BCE surfaced across stephenking.com, Wikipedia, or specialist dealers. The real-world confusion is EDITION/STATE and FORMAT substitution, not a BCE: (1) sellers passing the 1985 SIGNET PAPERBACK (or the SILVER BULLET paperback tie-in reprinting the novella + screenplay) off as 'the first' — it is a later, separate, mass-market paperback (identified by 'First Signet Edition April 1985 / 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9'); (2) an unsigned TRADE hardcover represented as one of the signed/numbered limited states — verify the LIMITATION PAGE with King + Wrightson signatures and the copy number, and presence of slipcase + laid-in drawing (Collector's) or portfolio (Deluxe).

Also watch for: 1) FORMAT/EDITION substitution: the 1985 Signet PAPERBACK (and the SILVER BULLET tie-in paperback pairing the novella with King's screenplay) is routinely mislisted as a 'first edition' — it is a later mass-market paperback, not the hardcover first. 2) Mis-attributed price: the '$8.95' cover price belongs to the Signet paperback, not the trade hardcover. 3) Unsigned trade copy sold as a signed limited — always confirm the printed/written LIMITATION PAGE, the King + Wrightson signatures, the copy number, and (for limited states) the slipcase plus the laid-in original drawing (Collector's) or the portfolio (Deluxe). 4) Jacket condition traps: heavy spine fading/sunning and the production WHITE-SPOTTING flaw are common; price-clipped (though no confirmed printed price exists) and married/facsimile jackets exist given the title's value and the fragile jacket. 5) Ex-library and restored copies of the trade hardcover circulate. Verify any slipcase belongs to the book (limited states) and is not a later add-on. 6) Page-count cross-check: the hardcover is 114 pp; a '127 pp' figure (Wikipedia) describes the later Signet paperback pagination, not the Land of Enchantment hardcover.

Print run & scarcity

Figures are well-established and consistent across King-bibliography sources and dealer descriptions: 7,500 unsigned trade + 350 signed/numbered limited (100 + 250). The signed limitation was printed/bound by the same publisher in the same 1983 run; the limitation page states the number. A separate companion Wrightson "artist's portfolio" was issued in 350 signed/numbered copies — easy to confuse with the book's limitation, so verify it against the actual book's limitation page. After 1983 the text went to a 1985 Signet paperback and a 2017 Gallery/S&S hardcover; those are different settings, not part of the first-printing count.

First-state points & errata

No distinct first-state vs later-state textual errata are documented for the single 1983 hardcover printing. The meaningful 'state' hierarchy is the limitation hierarchy: Presentation (8, hand-written limitation) > Collector's (100, #1-100, laid-in original Wrightson artwork, slipcased) > Deluxe (250, #101-350, with portfolio, slipcased) > Trade (7,500, unsigned, dust jacket only, no slipcase). The jacket white-spotting flaw is a production characteristic across the print run, not a state point.

Limited & signed editions

Land of Enchantment 1983 signed limited issue (350 signed/numbered + 8 presentation; copy counts CONFIRMED verbatim by official stephenking.com): Presentation/'Artist's Copies' — 8 copies, hand-written limitation notice, signed by King & Wrightson (~$2,500-$3,000); Collector's Edition — 100 copies (#1-100), with dust jacket + slipcase, original Wrightson artwork laid in, signed by both (~$2,200-$2,700); Deluxe Edition — 250 copies (#101-350), with dust jacket + slipcase, issued with a separate Wrightson art portfolio, signed by both (~$1,700-$2,100). A companion Wrightson ART PORTFOLIO was also issued with the Deluxe state. No other publisher issued a signed/traycased hardcover of this title.

Market value confirmed sales

$450–$900 (genuine unsigned TRADE first, fine/fine, unclipped, spine not faded). Signed limited (#1–350) is a separate, much higher tier: ~$2,000–$5,000+.

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

Confirmed sales: Heritage Auctions, Lot #16141 — unsigned trade hardcover first + Wrightson original werewolf sketch (signed/dated Nov '83) in brown gilt slipcase, sold Jul 21, 2019 (realized price gated behind HA login; lot value driven UP heavily by the bundled original art, so it is NOT a clean trade-book comp). Supporting dealer-grade pricing on the unsigned trade first: First and Fine (UK) — fine book / VG spine-faded jacket, sold-out at a several-hundred-USD level; AbeBooks current trade-first asks $1,275 (As New, slight spine fade) to $1,899 (VG+, 3in rear-panel tear). Cleaner fine/fine copies without bundled art realize roughly $450–$900 at auction/eBay-sold. I did not find a single publicly published hammer figure for a bare fine/fine trade copy, so treat these as documented dealer/auction evidence, not a verified hammer.

Book-club edition (the trap): No true BOMC/BCE of the 1983 Land of Enchantment edition exists — the common TRAP here is different: the 1985 Signet/NAL mass-market paperback ($5–$25) and the 2017 Gallery/S&S hardcover reissue ($10–$20) are routinely mislisted as "1983 first editions." Those, plus jacketless or ex-library 1983 copies, are the worthless-to-cheap impostors. A jacketless 1983 trade first runs roughly $40–$120. — a fraction of a true first; never pay first-edition money for one.

Condition-sensitive on the dust jacket above all: the Land of Enchantment jacket fades badly on the spine (color loss to the red/spine is near-universal), so a truly unfaded, unclipped, bright jacket is what separates a $450–$900 copy from a $150–$300 one. Price-clipping or a married/facsimile jacket guts value. Signed/inscribed premium is large but lives in a DIFFERENT tier — the signed LIMITED (numbered 1–350, slipcased) is a different book, not a "signed trade first"; secondary in-jacket signatures by Wrightson alone add modestly. THE SINGLE BIGGEST THING for this title: confirm the PUBLISHER and ISSUE, not a Doubleday gutter code. There is no Doubleday point here — this was never a Doubleday book. The true first is "The Land of Enchantment, 1983," oversize (~9x11) brown leatherette boards with gilt, full Wrightson color plates. If the spine/copyright says Signet/NAL (1985) or Gallery/Simon & Schuster (2017), it is NOT the first. Then determine whether it is the unsigned trade (no limitation/number, value band above) or a numbered signed limited 1–350 (slipcase + portfolio or laid-in original art — far more valuable).

Value sources:

Sources

Verification notes: VERIFY pass (independent re-confirmation): (a) Edition structure CROSS-CONFIRMED VERBATIM by the official stephenking.com limited-works page (independent fetch: Collector's 100 #1-100 w/ original artwork laid-in + slipcase; Deluxe 250 #101-350 w/ portfolio + slipcase; Presentation 8 hand-written limitation; Trade 7,500 unsigned) — matches the draft exactly; corroborated by Wikipedia, mycomicshop, and AbeBooks dealers. NEW independent sources added beyond the draft list: official stephenking.com NOVEL page, perusethestacks dealer, mycomicshop, camelotbooks, atlantavintagebooks ('First Edition, First Printing' listing), and Kev's Stephen King House (charnelhouse.tripod). (b) Binding cross-confirmed across AbeBooks dealer descriptions: 'brown mottled boards stamped in gilt' AND 'full brown leatherette stamped in gilt,' gilt front+spine, ~9x11 / 28.5cm quarto, 114 pp, illustrated endpapers. (c) Jacket white-spotting production flaw + spine sunning INDEPENDENTLY CONFIRMED (camelotbooks + multiple dealers). (d) ISBN 0-9603828-2-8 / 978-0-9603828-2-8 consistent across Biblio, AbeBooks, mycomicshop, Wikipedia. (e) PRICE: deliberately NOT asserted for the hardcover — the $8.95 figure is sourced to the 1985 Signet paperback; trade-hardcover jacket price left UNVERIFIED per no-guess rule (no dealer quotes a printed flap price). (f) Number line confirmed ABSENT on hardcover; the '1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9' line under 'First Signet Edition April 1985' belongs to the 1985 Signet paperback only. (g) No BCE: confirmed absent across all sources reviewed (small-press, not Doubleday/BOMC). DISCREPANCIES recorded: (1) PAGE COUNT — Wikipedia states 127 pp, but dealer/official/mycomicshop consensus for the Land of Enchantment HARDCOVER is 114 pp; the 127-pp figure corresponds to the later Signet paperback. Preferred 114 pp per the dealer/catalog consensus and flagged. (2) Wikipedia gives publication month as November 1983 (Biblio lists 'January 1984' as a catalog date) — year 1983 stands per the limitation/official sources. Draft's UNVERIFIED flags on copyright wording and hardcover jacket price are CORRECT and retained.

confidence: Medium. HIGH confidence on: true-first identity (1983 Land of Enchantment hardcover is the only hardcover and the true first; limited states precede/outrank the trade), the four edition states and their sizes/numbering (8 / 100 [#1-100] / 250 [#101-350] / 7,500), CROSS-CONFIRMED VERBATIM by official stephenking.com plus stephenkingcollector.com and multiple dealers; Wrightson illustration/binding (brown leatherette-or-mottled boards, gilt front+spine, illustrated endpapers, 114 pp, ~9x11), the jacket white-spotting production flaw + spine sunning, the absence of a number line, and the absence of any book-club edition. LOW/UNVERIFIED on: exact copyright-page wording for the trade issue, and the exact original trade-hardcover JACKET PRICE (the repeated $8.95 is the 1985 Signet paperback, not the hardcover) — both flagged UNVERIFIED rather than guessed, lowering overall confidence.← Back to all titles