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Duma Key Common

2008 · Scribner (Simon & Schuster), New York
First-edition cover of Duma Key
First-edition jacket (first edition (verified vs jacket)) · source

What it’s about

After a construction-site accident costs him an arm and nearly his life and marriage, wealthy contractor Edgar Freemantle retreats to a remote, sun-bleached island off Florida's Gulf Coast to recover. On Duma Key he takes up painting and discovers a startling, almost supernatural talent flowing through his phantom hand — but the island, his unsettling new work, and the elderly woman in the great house up the beach all seem to be pulling at something far older and hungrier than mere inspiration.

Significance A late-period solo King novel written during his own recovery from his 1999 near-fatal accident; it won the 2008 Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel and is prized as one of his most personal meditations on art, pain, and rehabilitation.

Is this the true first?Yes. The Scribner trade hardcover (January 22, 2008) is the true first edition, first printing. No paperback-original or small-press limited precedes it. The mass-market and trade paperback came later, as did an Overlook Connection Press signed/limited treatment; the trade hardcover is first in hand.
The Scribner trade hardcover is the true first edition. This is a Scribner-era King title (1998+), so the standard Scribner convention applies: a true first must carry BOTH the edition statement AND the full number line ending in "...10 8 6 4 2". No 1984-style Philtrum/Grant/Land-of-Enchantment small-press first precedes this title — those caveats apply to early-to-mid King, not to 2008-era Scribner releases. UNVERIFIED whether any pre-publication advance/proof issue would be considered a "first" by purists; the trade hardcover is the accepted true first for collectors.

First-printing points at a glance

First-printing statement"First Scribner Hardcover Edition" on the copyright page, which MUST be accompanied by the complete number line. Both elements together identify the first printing. (Scribner-era rule: edition statement AND number line must both be present.)
Number line"1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2" — a true first printing shows the full line with the "1" present. A later printing has the low numbers stripped (e.g., a second printing would not show the "1"; the lowest remaining digit indicates the printing).
Gutter / printer codeN/A — Scribner-era title; no Doubleday/printer gutter code. Identification is by edition statement + number line, not a gutter code.
First printing — copies~1,000,000–1,500,000 copies (first trade hardcover printing, Scribner) — sources disagree; figure uncertain accepted figure
First jacket price$28.00 (Upper front flap of the dust jacket (top-right corner of the front jacket flap). A price-clipped jacket (corner cut away) hides this and lowers value.)
Board (panel) colorNavy / sapphire-blue paper-covered boards (front and rear panels).
Spine / center bindingBlack spine cloth (quarter-bound), with lettering on the spine.
Binding styleQuarter-bound (two-tone): half/quarter black cloth (or black paper) spine over navy/sapphire-blue paper-covered boards. Sewn binding. Octavo, 611 pages.
Topstain / endpapersUNVERIFIED — no topstain reported (Scribner-era trade hardcovers of this period typically have plain white text-block edges and plain endpapers); no distinctive endpaper noted.

Dust jacket

Front panel features the Mark Stutzman cover art (atmospheric Florida/Gulf-coast Duma Key imagery) with the title rendered in distinctive holographic/foil lettering — a notable first-state jacket feature. Author name and title dominate the front; spine and rear continue the design. Rear panel/flaps carry blurb text and author bio. The holographic title lettering is a recognizable detail of the genuine first-printing jacket.

Art / design: Cover art by Mark Stutzman; jacket design by John Fulbrook III.

reference photohttps://www.flickr.com/photos/sdobie/3804566010reference photohttps://www.rarebookcellar.com/pages/books/172031/stephen-king/duma-key
Book-club edition & fakes — how to spot a wrong copyA book-club edition of Duma Key shares the same copyright-page text ("First Scribner Hardcover Edition") but is distinguished by: NO price on the upper front jacket flap (the $28.00 is absent — not merely clipped); thinner, lighter, cheaper paper and lower overall weight; often a slightly smaller trim; glued rather than fully sewn binding; and a small blind-stamp (indented circle/dot/square) on the lower-right rear board. Some BCE jackets print "Book Club Edition" on the lower front flap. The presence of the intact $28.00 price + heavier stock + sewn binding confirms the trade first; absence of the price is the primary BCE flag for this title.

Also watch for: Married jackets: a price-clipped or BCE-substituted jacket placed on a trade book block (verify the $28.00 price is original and that the block matches a trade first). Facsimile/reproduction jackets exist for high-demand King titles — check paper sheen and holographic-lettering authenticity. Ex-library copies (stamps, spine labels, pockets) and remainder marks (sprayed/marker stripe on bottom edge) reduce value. "Signed" copies should be signed on the TITLE PAGE; be cautious of auto-pen/secretarial signatures or laid-in signed bookplates marketed as in-book signatures. Confirm the full number line includes the "1" — later printings are frequently sold as firsts.

Print run & scarcity

Duma Key (Scribner, US trade hardcover, published Jan 22, 2008, $28.00, ISBN 978-1-4165-5251-2; #1 NYT bestseller). This is a mainstream Scribner trade title, NOT a small-press/Grant book, so the relevant figure is the trade-hardcover first printing, not signed/numbered/lettered limited counts. SOURCE DISAGREEMENT (all unofficial): (1) stephenkingcollector.com states "A first edition of 1,500,000 copies" — but the author of a forum post on the same topic admits "I remember reading a while back that the print run was 1.5 million, but now I can't find the info," so treat 1.5M as an unsourced estimate. (2) A collector forum list (jhanic) gives 1,000,000 as the first-printing figure. (3) A 2009 Publishers Weekly bestseller tally cited 595,000 — but that is reported SALES for the period, NOT the announced print run, so it should not be read as a first-printing quantity. The Publishers Weekly book page (9781416552512) and dealer listings (firstandfine, Bauman) describe the first-edition/first-printing (full number line "1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2") but publish NO official print-run number — Scribner did not publicly disclose one. RELIABILITY: no figure here is publisher-confirmed; the honest answer is a range of ~1M–1.5M with low confidence. LIMITED EDITIONS: no confirmed signed/numbered/lettered limited edition of Duma Key with documented counts surfaced; Cemetery Dance has offered an aftermarket SLIPCASE for the trade hardcover (not a separate limited edition with its own print run). King-signed copies of the standard trade first printing exist on the rare-book market but are not a distinct limited issue.

First-state points & errata

No widely documented first-state errata/typo correction separates first-state from later-state copies of Duma Key. Identification rests on the "First Scribner Hardcover Edition" statement + full "...10 8 6 4 2" number line + $28.00 jacket price. UNVERIFIED that any internal text-state variant exists.

Limited & signed editions

An Overlook Connection Press signed/slipcased treatment is associated with the title (limited, signed). Cichon Books produced later signed/limited rebound editions. The Scribner trade hardcover itself is the standard first; signed trade copies (signed on the title page by King) command a premium but are the same first edition. UNVERIFIED exact limitation numbers for the Overlook Connection slipcase.

Market value confirmed sales

$50–125 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: Bauman Rare Books — signed-on-title-page first, fine in dust jacket, marked SOLD (dealer record, retail tier ~$1,000–1,500). First and Fine — signed US first, fine/like jacket, "Out of stock" (sold; uncommon signed in fine). eBay sold-tier, unsigned true first ($28 jacket, full number line), fine: roughly $40–95 range (2024–2025). Rare Book Cellar / Minotavros dealer fine/fine unsigned firsts offered ~$75–100 (street price for the common unsigned grade). NOTE: no public Heritage/PBA hammer lot surfaced for an unsigned trade first — not fabricated.

Book-club edition (the trap): $3–10. BOMC/book-club editions are near-worthless and are the #1 mislisted "first" for this title. — a fraction of a true first; never pay first-edition money for one.

Single biggest tell for THIS title: it is a SCRIBNER book, so ignore any "Doubleday gutter code" framing — that point does not apply and signals a misidentified listing. A genuine first has (1) the full number line "1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2" on the copyright page AND (2) the $28.00 price intact, UNCLIPPED, on the front jacket flap. Book-club copies are the trap: they carry NO price on the jacket flap (or a clipped/blank flap), are physically smaller/lighter with cheaper boards, and very often have a blind-stamp/dot on the rear board — reject any of these. Condition is everything because the first printing was enormous (a 2008 #1 bestseller, hundreds of thousands of copies), so the unsigned book is a common modern first; fine/fine unclipped is the only grade with real collector demand. The value engine is the SIGNATURE: King is a reliable in-person signer, and a verified signed-on-title-page copy in fine/fine multiplies value ~8–15x over unsigned (roughly $700–1,500 at dealer/retail). Price-clipped, ex-library, reading-copy wear, or a married/facsimile jacket each crater value back toward book-club territory.

Value sources:

Sources

Verification notes: Price ($28.00) cross-confirmed by two independent searches (abebooks dealer data + eBay/dealer listings). Number line "1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2" confirmed across multiple dealer descriptions. Edition statement "First Scribner Hardcover Edition" confirmed via dealer copyright-page transcription. Binding (quarter black cloth / navy-sapphire boards) confirmed via two dealer descriptions + Bauman ("half black cloth"). Jacket credits (Mark Stutzman art, John Fulbrook III design) confirmed via Flickr copyright/credits transcription. Note: an earlier search probe surfaced "Tak Toyoshima" and "Rex Bonomelli" — both were NOT confirmed and are rejected; the verified credits are Stutzman/Fulbrook.

confidence: High for the core points: publisher (Scribner 2008), $28.00 jacket price on the front flap, number line "1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2", edition statement "First Scribner Hardcover Edition," quarter-black-cloth over navy boards, jacket art Mark Stutzman / design John Fulbrook III — all cross-checked across multiple dealer/collector sources. Medium/low on topstain & endpaper specifics and on exact Overlook Connection limitation figures (marked UNVERIFIED).← Back to all titles