King, Stephen (1974) ‘Carrie’, UK first edition with the original first edition dust jacket

Stephen King (1974) ‘Carrie‘, UK first edition, first printing, published by New English Library (NEL).

Condition: a very good to near fine book with a very good and original first edition dust jacket. The book is NOT ex-libris and bears no stamps, no bookplates and no scribbles inside of any sorts. The boards are clean, the lettering on the spine vibrant and NOT rubbed out. Light shelf wear and rubbing to bottom edges from sliding in and out of the shelf. One shallow knock to rear board as shown. The page blosk is toned commensurate with age and consistent with NEL productions from the 1970s. The dust jacket is NOT price clipped and NOT faded on the spine. Light rubbing to folds. One closed tear of about 1cm to the bottom. No foxing to either book nor dust jacket.

This is a very scarce British first edition of Stephen King’s famous debut novel. Whereas in the US Doubleday printed 30,000 copies, in the UK NEL was less confident of commercial success and estimates range from 600 to 1,000 copies only. Of those, a good proportion of several hundreds went to public libraries receiving corresponding treatment.

Carrie was quickly adapted into a film (1976) by Brian de Palma, and launched King’s stellar career.