What they really have is a book club edition. Most of the first edition books on ebay do not say anything on the copyright page, so sellers assume they have a first edition. The most important identifier is the copyright page will say “First Edition”. The hard cover is brown with a green spine.

First editions are also a hard cover, unless it is an advanced paperback (another article someday). The front inside flap of the dust jacket has the price $3.95 at the bottom of the flap. On the bottom right corner of the photo, is Truman Capote’s name. The back of the dust jacket has a picture of Harper Lee taken by Truman Capote. The title is in a black band and a tree on a brown background. The dust jacket was printed in four colors black, white, green, and brown. There are a few things to look for to identify if your copy is a first edition. 15 years ago a first edition went for about $250, today I have seen prices well over $20,000. Collectors who want this book will pay large amounts of money for it. Values of the 1st edition book are skyrocketing. I was on the best sellers list for 100 weeks and won the Pulitzer Prize. It was chosen for three American book clubs and sold more than 2.5 million copies. The book was a hit it had 14 printings in the first year. Most of those went to libraries around the country. There were only 5000 copies of the book printed for the July 11th 1960 release date. Typically publishing houses would only print a small batch for new authors.

Harper Lee was an unknown author in 1960. The person selling the $4.99 ‘first’ are not being dishonest, they are naive. The prices on these “1st Editions” range from $4.99 to well over $2000. Run a search on ebay looking for a copy of 1st editions of “To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, and you will get dozens of hits.

First edition to kill a mockingbird