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Lisey's Story Common

2006 · Charles Scribner's Sons (Scribner / Simon & Schuster), New York
First-edition cover of Lisey's Story
First-edition jacket (first edition (verified vs jacket)) · source

What it’s about

Two years after the death of her husband, the celebrated and award-winning novelist Scott Landon, Lisey Landon at last begins sorting through his study and unpublished papers. The task stirs up the private language, shared memories, and a strange otherworld the couple kept secret during their marriage—just as a menacing stranger obsessed with Scott's work fixes his attention on her. A intimate portrait of a long marriage braided with mounting dread, it asks how well we ever truly know the person we love.

Significance Solo Stephen King novel (not Bachman, not co-authored); winner of the 2006 Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel, often named by King as his personal favorite of his books, and adapted into a 2021 Apple TV+ limited series scripted by King and starring Julianne Moore and Clive Owen.

Is this the true first?yes. The Scribner trade hardcover (October 24, 2006) is a true first edition. No paperback original and no small-press limited precedes it. There IS a contemporaneous "gift edition" slipcased hardcover (Quality Book Club / ISBN 9780739476536) but that is a book-club product, not a precedence-setting limited.
The trade hardcover IS the true first. Unlike early Doubleday-era titles (where a Grant/Philtrum/Land of Enchantment small-press limited can precede the trade), Lisey's Story had no signed/numbered small-press limited issued ahead of or alongside the Scribner trade. The Scribner first printing (number line ending in 1, $28.00 jacket) is the book to own. The only other 2006 hardcover variant is the Quality Book Club slipcased "gift edition," which is a club product and does NOT precede the trade first.

First-printing points at a glance

First-printing statementScribner convention: the copyright page states "First Edition" (or "First Scribner edition") AND must carry the full descending-row number line ending in 1. BOTH must be present together for a true first printing. (Per Scribner 1998+ practice; cross-confirmed by dealer listings citing "All first edition points present including the complete number line.")
Number lineFirst printing: "1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2" (full line, lowest digit 1 present). A later printing drops the low numbers — e.g. a second printing would read with the lowest number being 2 (no 1). Confirmed explicitly by stephenkingcollector.com and Bauman Rare Books; multiple dealers corroborate "full number line to 1."
Gutter / printer codeN/A (Scribner/Simon & Schuster era — first printings are identified by the "First Edition" statement + number line, not a Doubleday-style gutter code).
First printing — copies~1,250,000 copies (1.25 million — first trade printing, Scribner hardcover, Oct 24, 2006) accepted figure
First jacket price$28.00 (Upper front flap of the dust jacket (top right corner of the inner front flap). An unclipped first-printing jacket shows "$28.00" (with the Canadian price typically alongside). A price-clipped corner hides this and lowers value.)
Board (panel) colorPictorial/printed paper-over-boards: a deep red ground with an all-over garden/floral pattern (vibrant flower-decorated boards) carrying white and red lettering on the front cover — laminated pictorial boards rather than plain cloth.
Spine / center bindingSpine continues the red pictorial/floral board treatment (printed paper-over-boards, not a separate cloth spine). This is a full pictorial-board binding, NOT quarter-bound two-tone cloth. UNVERIFIED if any copies used a contrasting cloth spine.
Binding styleOctavo, sewn hardcover in original pictorial laminated paper-over-boards (full pictorial boards, not quarter cloth), issued in dust jacket. Bauman describes it as "original pictorial laminated boards."
Topstain / endpapersUNVERIFIED. No source consulted documents a colored topstain; text-block top showed white/no notable stain in listings (one dealer noted incidental discoloration, not a deliberate topstain). Endpapers not specifically described — treat as plain unless examined.

Dust jacket

Deep red wrapper. The front features a distinctive die-cut/illustrated motif of an upright shovel (spade) standing in/through a garden scene — echoing the novel's "bool" and digging/Boo'ya Moon imagery — set against the floral red field that matches the boards. Title and author in white/red. Rear panel and flaps continue the red garden theme with publisher blurb and author photo on rear flap.

Art / design: UNVERIFIED. Jacket design credited on the rear flap/copyright page (Scribner in-house art department, typical of this era); specific designer/photographer not confirmed by sources consulted — do NOT assume Goretsky/Bonomelli without seeing the credit line.

reference photohttps://www.stephenkingcollector.com/1st/lisey.htmlreference photohttps://www.baumanrarebooks.com/rare-books/king-stephen/lisey-s-story/110622.aspx
Book-club edition & fakes — how to spot a wrong copyQuality Book Club "gift edition": comes in a SLIPCASE with a ribbon bookmark (the trade first has NO slipcase). It is NOT signed, uses a separate club ISBN (9780739476536), and would lack the "$28.00 / full number line to 1" trade-first points. General BCE tells for this title: smaller/thinner trim, cheaper paper, glued vs sewn, "Book Club Edition" on the lower front jacket flap with NO printed price (or a clipped/blank price area), and (for Scribner club copies) absence of the proper "First Edition + number line to 1" statement. A slipcase is the fastest tell that you are NOT holding the trade first.

Also watch for: Cautions: (1) Married jackets — a later-printing or club book in a first-jacket, or vice versa; verify the number line ends in 1 AND the jacket shows unclipped $28.00. (2) Price-clipped jackets hide the price point and lower value. (3) Ex-library copies (stamps, pockets, spine labels) — common and low value. (4) Book-club/gift slipcased copies passed off as the trade first — the slipcase is the giveaway. (5) Forged tour signatures — demand provenance. (6) Remainder marks on the bottom text-block edge indicate a remaindered (still potentially first-printing) copy with reduced value. Print run was very large (~1.25 million), so genuine firsts are common and inexpensive — pay a premium ONLY for signed-with-provenance or pristine fine/fine.

Print run & scarcity

Format: trade hardcover first edition, Scribner (New York), published Oct 24, 2006, $28.00, ISBN 0743289412 / 9780743289412. First-edition point: full number line ending in '1' on the copyright page. NOTE this is the trade first printing — explicitly verified against THIS title, not carried over from the Carrie ~30,000 reference figure; a top-tier modern Scribner King release was printed at roughly 40x that scale. LIMITED/SIGNED: No evidence of a true signed/numbered or lettered limited edition of Lisey's Story. The 'signed first editions' on the market are ordinary trade first printings that King hand-signed (often on the title page) — they carry no stated limitation. Some numbered review/proof copies (advance reader copies) circulated to trade/media as gifts, not for sale, but these are proofs, not a numbered limited edition. There was NO Subterranean Press signed-limited of this title — Subterranean's 2006 King small-press project was The Green Mile 10th-anniversary, not Lisey's Story; eBay 'limited edition in slipcase' listings for Lisey's Story do not trace to a documented numbered small-press limitation. SOURCE DISAGREEMENT: minimal — the 1.25M figure is the only specific number any source gives; other sources (Wikipedia, Bauman Rare Books, AbeBooks dealer listings) simply omit a print-run figure rather than contradict it.

First-state points & errata

No widely documented errata or first-state-vs-later-state text change is recorded for this title. The first printing is distinguished purely by the number line ending in 1 plus the $28.00 unclipped jacket — not by a typo correction. UNVERIFIED whether any later-state internal correction exists.

Limited & signed editions

No traditional signed/numbered/traycased small-press limited (e.g., Subterranean/Cemetery Dance/Grant) was issued for Lisey's Story. The only "deluxe" variant is the Quality Book Club slipcased gift edition (unsigned, club product). Signed FIRST trade copies exist from King's 2006 publicity tour (NY, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, London, Watford, Thurrock) — these are signed trade firsts, not a separate limited; seek provenance (event program/receipt) per stephenkingcollector.com.

Market value confirmed sales

$40–75 (unsigned true first, fine/fine, unclipped)

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

Confirmed sales: (1) Signed first/first, eBay SOLD ~$180.38, ended June 2016. (2) Unsigned first/first fine/fine — dealer-confirmed selling band $25–30 (BOOKFELLOWS $28, Artis Books $29.95, Scene of the Crime $25), 2024–2026 AbeBooks. (3) Signed fine/fine dealer-realized tier $1,000–1,500 (Raptis/Bauman/Meier & Sons signed-on-title-page copies; ~$1,395 AbeBooks signed-fine). Note: no Heritage/PBA auction record located for this title — it is too common at the trade level to reach those rooms unsigned.

Book-club edition (the trap): $8–20. The Book Club / "Gift" edition (often slipcased) carries no $28 DJ price and no number line; effectively decorative, not collectible. — a fraction of a true first; never pay first-edition money for one.

Condition sensitivity is modest at the unsigned level because the book is abundant — only a crisp fine/fine unclipped copy holds the top of the $40–75 band; reading copies are $10–20. The signed/inscribed premium is enormous and is the entire collector story here: a flat signature on the title page jumps a $50 book to roughly $700–1,500 (full-date or "Lisey/Scott" thematic inscriptions higher). BIGGEST TRAP FOR THIS TITLE: it is Scribner, NOT Doubleday — so ignore any "Doubleday gutter code" advice; the sole first-printing point is "First Edition" stated on the copyright page WITH a number line ending in 1 ("1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2"). The single most reliable real-vs-fake separator is the DUST JACKET FLAP: a genuine trade first shows the $28.00 price; book-club/gift copies have NO printed price and NO number line (and are slightly smaller, frequently slipcased). A price-clipped jacket on a King bestseller is an instant red flag — it hides whether the copy was ever a priced trade first and kills most of the value either way.

Value sources:

Sources

confidence: high — number line "1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2", $28.00 front-flap price, and the floral/red pictorial boards are each cross-confirmed by two or more independent dealer/collector sources (stephenkingcollector.com, Bauman Rare Books, AbeBooks/Biblio listings, Gary's Vintage Books). Lowered from "very high" only because the exact stated wording ("First Edition" vs "First Scribner edition"), the jacket designer credit, and topstain/endpaper details were not directly verified and are marked UNVERIFIED.← Back to all titles