A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin - 1996: Book One of a Song of Ice and Fire

A Game of Thrones Book One of A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin Hardcover First Edition - First Printing HarperCollins Voyager UK 1996. £16.99 cover price. Beautiful wrap-around dust jacket artwork by Jim Burns, far better than the US' silly cover art of a throne. Red cloth binding, about 9.5x6.5", 694 numbered pages. (This copy is NOT the BCA edition)

Near Fine++ in Fine- Dust Jacket, a beautiful copy, probably read once with typical toning to the text-block (i.e. page edges). Corners straight, boards mostly clean, hint of superficial and rather faint handling marks on the front board, almost imperceptible. The only short-comings to the jacket are a nick to the upper back corner, and a tiny pinprick to the lower right-hand corner, almost imperceptible. Else a really nice copy.

Edition Note: A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin was first published in hardcover in the UK by HarperCollins/Voyager and Bantam in the US in 1996. Some controversy exists regarding which edition appeared first. The release date of the UK edition was before the official release date for the US edition, but some copies of the US edition were made available at a science fiction convention. However, I would argue the release dates are the true measure because, unless someone attended the convention, they weren't going to acquire this book until the release date. The UK edition published by HarperCollins-Voyager was probably printed in 10% of the numbers of the Bantam edition and features stunning dust jacket artwork by Jim Burns, while the miserable US edition just had an outline of a throne. (Apparently there was alternative artwork for the US edition which was rejected by the publisher and they didn't have time to commission new artwork. Some advance reading copies have the unused artwork.) It has since been reprinted many times by Bantam US in hardcover but as far as I can tell not in the UK with this artwork, save a BCA edition. In 2014, Subterranean Press issued the first signed-limited and illustrated edition of GOT in two-volumes and slipcase which now runs about $1000+. This is the first UK edition of the book as far as I can tell.

NOTE: The pictures are of the actual item for sale, not stock photos.

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