11 Scribes · All titles · The Dark Tower (Donald M. Grant)

The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass Common

1997 · Donald M. Grant, Publisher, Inc. (Hampton Falls, NH) — issued both the SIGNED LIMITED and the general-distribution TRADE hardcover, 1997. This Grant trade hardcover is the US true first. (Plume/Penguin issued the 1997 illustrated trade paperback and later the mass-market; these are derivative, not firsts.)
First-edition cover of The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass
First-edition jacket (first (Wikipedia infobox)) · source

What it’s about

After escaping the riddling monorail Blaine, Roland of Gilad and his ka-tet shelter in a strange, plague-emptied version of Kansas, where the gunslinger finally tells them the story he has carried his whole life. He recounts his youth: a fourteen-year-old sent east to the sleepy barony of Mejis, where a fateful assignment, a brewing conspiracy, and his first, all-consuming love for a girl named Susan Delgado set him on the long road toward the Dark Tower. It is a sweeping romance and tragedy braided into the larger quest, told as the tale that made Roland the man he is.

Significance The fourth volume of King's eight-book Dark Tower magnum opus (published as Stephen King), it won the 1998 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel and is widely regarded by fans as the emotional heart of the series, deepening its links to the wider King multiverse including The Stand and The Wizard of Oz.

Is this the true first?Yes. The Donald M. Grant hardcover is the true first edition. Two simultaneous 1997 Grant issues: a SIGNED LIMITED (1,250 numbered copies, TWO-VOLUME, matching slipcase, signed by Stephen King and Dave McKean) and a TRADE hardcover (40,000 copies, single volume). The trade hardcover is the standard collectible first; the signed limited is the deluxe/precedence issue. There is NO paperback original — the Plume/Penguin softcover (1997, illustrated) is a later derivative.
The Grant trade hardcover IS the true first US trade edition. Unlike The Gunslinger / Drawing of the Three (where a small Grant limited preceded the later, widely-distributed Plume printing), by Wizard and Glass Grant issued BOTH a signed limited (1,250) AND a general-trade hardcover (40,000) in 1997 — and this was 'the first by Grant released through major booksellers,' selling out almost immediately. For absolute precedence the signed limited is the most senior issue, but the Grant trade is the first widely available hardcover and the standard collectible first. The Plume trade paperback (1997) and later Viking/Penguin mass-market printings followed.

First-printing points at a glance

First-printing statementCopyright page states "FIRST EDITION". This is the controlling Grant first-printing point (confirmed by veryfinebooks, AbeBooks consolidated dealer descriptions, stephenkingcollector.com, and Books At Midnight — variously "Stated 'First Edition' on the copyright page" / "First Edition/First Printing [Stated]"). The signed limited additionally carries a numbered limitation page signed by Stephen King and Dave McKean.
Number lineN/A as the controlling point. Grant identifies its firsts by the printed "FIRST EDITION" copyright-page STATEMENT, not by a Random-House-style descending number line; no dealer listing or collector reference inspected shows a positive number line on the Grant trade. NOTE/DISCREPANCY: one search-engine summary asserted a full "1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9" line, but no primary listing or collector source corroborates it — treat any claimed number line as UNVERIFIED/non-controlling and rely on the "FIRST EDITION" statement plus the $45.00 unclipped jacket.
Gutter / printer codeNot documented
First printing — copies~40,000 copies (Donald M. Grant trade hardcover, 1st edition/1st printing, 1997) · signed limited: Signed/numbered limited edition: 1,250 copies — 2-volume slipcased set, signed by Stephen King and illustrator Dave McKean ($175 issue price). accepted figure
First jacket price$45.00 (trade hardcover). Signed limited two-volume set: $175.00 (printed on the limited's jackets). (Upper front dust-jacket flap / upper jacket corner. Confirmed unclipped on first-printing trade copies as "$45.00"; a price-clipped flap hides this and lowers value.)
Board (panel) colorBlack cloth boards (full cloth), with gilt/blind stamped detailing.
Spine / center bindingBlack cloth spine with bright gilt (gold) titling on the backstrip. Full-cloth binding (not quarter-bound or two-tone). Confirmed: "bound in black cloth with bright gilt titles on the spine."
Binding styleFull-cloth case binding, sewn (Grant hardcovers are sewn). Trade = single volume (787 pp.); signed limited = two volumes in a matching cloth slipcase.
Topstain / endpapersSpecially-commissioned illustrated endpapers by Dave McKean (a distinguishing first-edition feature). Topstain color: UNVERIFIED.

Where to buy marker-checked

Live AbeBooks listings, checked against the seller's own photos. ✓ confirmed = a photo shows the decisive first-printing marker; cover only = ask the seller for the copyright-page shot before buying.

✓ 1st/1st confirmed$316Laureate Fine Booksunclipped. CONFIRMED genuine US TRADE first edition / first printing. The decisive copyright page is photographed (photo 6) and shows everything neede✓ 1st/1st confirmed$475Foley & Sons Fine Editionsunclipped. DECISIVE evidence photographed. Photo 5 (copyright page) clearly states "FIRST EDITION" with Donald M. Grant, Publisher, Inc., Hampton Fall

1 listing flagged wrong-edition / later printing and hidden.

Dust jacket

Dave McKean cover art in his signature collage/mixed-media style; the jacket is described by dealers as a glossy black jacket, title in light lettering on the front; back and flaps carry McKean artwork consistent with the illustrated interior. The eighteen McKean color plates appear only in the 1997 Grant first hardback (and the 1997 illustrated Plume trade paperback).

Art / design: Dave McKean — dust-jacket art plus eighteen full-page color interior illustrations and the endpapers, all commissioned for this first edition.

reference photohttps://veryfinebooks.com/stephen-king-dark-tower-iv-wizard-glass-first-edition-printing-sealed-Grant/reference photohttps://veryfinebooks.com/stephen-king-dark-tower-iv-wizard-glass-signed-limited-edition-Grant/reference photohttps://booksatmidnight.com/products/the-dark-tower-iv-wizard-and-glass-by-stephen-king-1st-edition
Book-club edition & fakes — how to spot a wrong copyNo traditional book-club edition was issued for the Grant Wizard and Glass — Grant did not produce a BCE, and no source documents one. A genuine "Book Club Edition" Grant hardcover should NOT exist; treat any copy stamped "Book Club Edition," lacking the $45.00 priced jacket, with a blind-stamped rear board, or printed on thin paper at a reduced trim as suspect/derivative. The real downgrade risks are the later Plume/Penguin TRADE PAPERBACK and later Viking/Penguin mass-market printings passed off as the Grant first. Confirm: Grant imprint, "FIRST EDITION" copyright statement, $45.00 unclipped jacket, black cloth + gilt spine titles, full eighteen McKean color plates + illustrated endpapers.

Also watch for: 1) Married jackets — a clipped or facsimile $45.00 flap mated to a different copy; verify flap/price integrity. 2) The 1997 Plume/Penguin illustrated TRADE PAPERBACK misrepresented as the hardcover first. 3) Later Viking/Penguin mass-market or Dark Tower omnibus printings sold as the Grant first. 4) Ex-library copies (stamps, pockets, spine labels) — heavy value hit. 5) Remainder marks on the bottom text-block edge. 6) Facsimile/reproduction dust jackets. 7) For the signed limited: forged King/McKean signatures and mismatched/incomplete sets (must include BOTH volumes + slipcase). Always confirm Grant imprint + "FIRST EDITION" + $45.00 ($175.00 limited) + black cloth/gilt spine + full McKean plates.

Print run & scarcity

PREMISE CORRECTION: The task assumed later Dark Tower volumes had their mass release as a SCRIBNER trade hardcover. That is NOT true for Wizard and Glass (1997). Donald M. Grant published BOTH the signed-limited AND the major trade hardcover. There was no Scribner first-printing of this title. (Scribner only became King's main publisher in 1998 with Bag of Bones, and Grant continued doing the Dark Tower illustrated hardcovers — Scribner later did mass-market/trade reprints of the series, but the 1997 FIRST release was Grant's 40,000-copy trade hardcover.) So the 'major first run' the average collector means here = the Grant trade hardcover at ~40,000. This was notably the first Grant Dark Tower volume distributed widely through major booksellers, and it sold out almost immediately. A trade paperback also appeared in 1997 carrying the same 18 Dave McKean illustrations. One dealer listing cited 45,000 for the first printing, but 40,000 is the figure repeated across the majority of dealer sources and is the safer canonical number. Recommend updating the guide's 'first run' field to '~40,000 (Grant trade hardcover)' rather than the 1,250 signed/limited count.

First-state points & errata

No widely documented errata or state change separating first-state from later-state Grant trade copies; Grant ran a single 40,000-copy trade printing, so first-printing = the printing. Defining points: the "FIRST EDITION" statement, the $45.00 unclipped jacket, black cloth with gilt spine titling, and the complete suite of EIGHTEEN Dave McKean full-page COLOR illustrations plus the specially-commissioned illustrated endpapers (present only in the 1997 Grant first hardback and the 1997 illustrated Plume trade paperback). Any deeper first-state distinction is UNVERIFIED.

Limited & signed editions

Signed Limited Edition, Donald M. Grant, 1997: 1,250 numbered copies, TWO-VOLUME set in a matching cloth slipcase, signed by Stephen King AND illustrator Dave McKean, jacket-priced $175.00. (No separate lettered/traycased state is widely documented for this title; UNVERIFIED if one exists.)

Market value confirmed sales

$60–150 (genuine Grant trade-hardcover first, fine/fine, $45 jacket unclipped). Premium tier — signed limited (1,250 copies) — runs $1,500–3,000+ and is a different book.

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) StephenKingCollector forum + dealer consensus benchmark: fine/fine Grant 1997 trade firsts change hands "under $100" — copies have sold in the ~$45–95 band on eBay sold/AbeBooks for clean unclipped examples (recurring 2023–2025). (2) Rare King Books / specialist dealers list near-fine to fine firsts around $250–399 ASK, with realized sales settling well below ask, typically $90–150. (3) Sealed/unread "as issued in publisher's box" exceptional copies (top of trade-hardcover market) realize ~$200–300+ (VeryFineBooks-tier listings). NOTE: I am flagging these as documented dealer/sold-pattern ranges, not fabricating a specific Heritage lot+date — no discrete trade-hardcover auction record was confirmable in this pass.

Book-club edition (the trap): No true hardcover book-club edition of the Grant text exists, so the usual "BCE trap" is different here. The trap copy is the 1997 Plume trade PAPERBACK (same 18 McKean illustrations, frequently mislisted as a "first edition") — worth roughly $10–25, and ex-library / price-clipped / reading-copy Grant hardcovers ($15–35). A bare Grant dust jacket alone sells ~$20–40. Treat any sub-$30 "first edition" as paperback, later printing, or ex-lib until the points are verified. — a fraction of a true first; never pay first-edition money for one.

Condition sensitivity is high relative to the modest ceiling: the $45.00 jacket MUST be unclipped — clipping or a married/facsimile jacket halves value or worse. With a 40,000-copy print run this is a common book, so only genuinely fine/fine unclipped copies hold the upper range; near-fine and below collapse toward $40–60. Signed/inscribed: a King signature on the TRADE hardcover (not the limited) commands a large multiple, $400–800+ depending on authentication, but be wary of secretarial/auto-pen and unverified sigs. THE SINGLE BIGGEST THING that separates a real first from the mislisted copies of THIS title: it is the GRANT HARDCOVER stating "FIRST EDITION" on the copyright page, $45.00 price intact on the jacket, with the 18 McKean color illustrations and ISBN 0-937986-91-7 (937986 / Grant prefix) — NOT the 1997 Plume/Penguin trade PAPERBACK and NOT the Viking/Plume mass-market reprints, which are the copies flooding AbeBooks/eBay listings as "1st edition." There is no Doubleday gutter code to check here (that points test belongs to King's Doubleday-published titles, not the Grant Dark Tower volumes); the discriminator is hardcover-vs-paperback + Grant copyright statement + unclipped $45 jacket.

Value sources:

Sources

Verification notes: VERIFIED against an INDEPENDENT source not in the original draft: the AbeBooks consolidated edition page (9781880418383 ...plp), whose multi-dealer descriptions explicitly state "First Edition/First Printing [Stated]", "$45.00 unclipped", "bound in black cloth with bright gilt titles on the spine"/"Publisher's Black Cloth, Stamped Gilt Detailing", "~40,000 copies — first by Grant released through major booksellers", and "eighteen full-page colour illustrations and endpapers by Dave McKean". Also cross-checked stephenkingcollector.com/limited/dt4.html (authoritative: "Limited edition of 1,250 slipcased copies numbered and signed by Stephen King and Dave McKean" + "Trade hardcover edition of 40,000 copies") and Books At Midnight + Rare King Books. DISCREPANCIES corrected/flagged vs draft: (1) Number line — draft's N/A stands, but I documented a conflicting (uncorroborated) "full number line" claim and an opposing search summary; the "FIRST EDITION" statement is the sole controlling point. (2) Signed-limited count — one search summary said "1,200"; the authoritative collector site and the veryfinebooks listing (No. 929 of 1,250) confirm 1,250 — draft's 1,250 is CORRECT. (3) Trade run — one search summary said "45,000"; primary sources confirm 40,000 — draft's 40,000 is CORRECT. (4) ISBN — draft dismissed 0-937986-91-7 as a likely error; in fact it is Grant's older house-prefix ISBN and appears on the veryfinebooks listing for this very book, while 9781880418383/188041838X is the dominant catalog ISBN (AbeBooks). Both circulate; do NOT treat 0-937986-91-7 as merely a typo. (5) Board/spine color — now POSITIVELY confirmed (black cloth, gilt spine titles) rather than "some listings note", raising confidence from medium-high to high.

confidence: High. Multiple INDEPENDENT sources confirm the controlling points: "FIRST EDITION" copyright statement, $45.00 unclipped trade jacket, 40,000-copy trade run, 1,250-copy two-volume signed limited at $175.00 (No. 929 example), black cloth with gilt spine titling, and Dave McKean as illustrator/jacket artist with 18 color plates + illustrated endpapers. Residual uncertainty: (a) the number line — N/A per the controlling statement, with one uncorroborated claim of a "1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9" line; (b) ISBN — both 9781880418383/188041838X (dominant catalog ISBN, AbeBooks) AND 0-937986-91-7 (Grant house-prefix ISBN, shown on veryfinebooks listing) appear in commerce; not a simple listing error; (c) topstain color UNVERIFIED.← Back to all titles