Half Magic

Overview:

• Title: Half Magic
• Author: Edward Eager
• Year: 1955
• Publisher: Harcourt, Brace & Company
• Price: $2.75
• Pages: 217
• Binding: Hardcover
• Type: Novel
• Title Reference: Half Magic
• Notes: A Weekly Reader Children's Book Club edition that is marked "first edition" on the copyright page. It is a book club, and it even mentions the date of 1955 (one year after the First Edition) on the copyright page where it also mentions that it is a Book Club. For some reason people seem to want to look past the book club markings and concentrate on the "first edition" printed on the page. Weekly Reader did this with a number of the books they published. They either used or copied the plates used for the original books and did not bother to remove the "first edition" markings. In some cases their books have later printing markings where they did not publish the title until a later date and used what was available to copy. In any case the Weekly Reader editions are bound in a printed material that looks like the dust jacket design, It has the Weekly Reader logo printed on the rear cover, as well as several other places in and on the book. It, like at least most other title Weekly Reader produced books, is printed on poor quality paper which browns very easily. The Dust jacket for this edition has the same front and spine as the true First Edition (perhaps printed in darker colors), the rear panel has only a Weekly Reader logo rather than ads for other books, the front flap is the same as on the First Edition (even the $2.75 price is the same), the rear flap has similar text as the First Edition until at the bottom the publisher's address and code 80-120 have been replaced by Weekly Reader Children's Book Club and their address. While this makes a nice reading copy, it is not a First Edition no matter what the copyright page states. The real First Edition is printed on better paper that does not brown, or at least not more than the usual trade edition book does.